In the Fatherland
by McStaken
Summary: Someone in Hydra had to have a sick sense of humour to use Winter Soldier and Black Widow for this project. An assassin and a weapon always produced death. Which is exactly what Project Preying Mantis was intended to be - Death incarnate. At least until the weapon absconded with it. Her.
1. Ribbons

The room was full of fine dining, good music, cigar smoke - despite the ban.

Adolphus Corsas thought this little soiree was going well. The knives had not yet been drawn. His company would greatly benefit from HYDRA affiliations, it would open many doors for him. Doors that were spilling out with wealth.

He tucked one hand into his suit trousers, the other was wrapped around a fine Cuban cigar. This was a celebration after all - a victory of sorts. With HYDRA backing, his company would never go bankrupt, never be the source of scandal, would be the very top of the list.

Oh sure, there'd be a few things they ask for. A shipment of "Don't know" to "Where?" or perhaps an unnecessary transaction from one shell company to another - but that was the price you pay for security.

There were also plenty of rumours about the shadowy organization - they had a human _weapon_ fer Christ's sake - but Adolphus had never been one to believe in rumour. He should know - he's made up one or two to discredit his better competitors.

Something caught his eye - a wrongness about the dancefloor.

His eyes scanned consciously for the thing that his subconscious had picked up. Plenty of black, plenty of jewellery on display. What had he seen that was so wrong?

Between the dancing and chit-chat, there was a small little red-headed girl in a pink dress.

Was she one of the guests offspring? He thought he'd made it clear that this was an adult only affair.

The cigar shifted in his mouth as he took the decision to ask her who her parents were so he may reprimand them properly.

'Hello...Little girl.'

Adolphus was always uncomfortable about small children. Particularly the ones that parents tended to dote on. The ones more likely to be complete and utter _little shits_.

She looked up at him coolly, appraising him for trustworthiness and clutched her overly large teddy - she had a fucking teddy bear? - closer. If he wasn't one hundred percent against drugs, he would swear he was on some right now.

Two hazel brown eyes looked up at him from over the scruffy toy. 'Hi.' She murmured shyly.

'Where are your parents?' He asked without preamble. The less time he spent talking to this monster, the better.

The little girl's eyes widened ever so slightly, looked left, then right and murmured 'Dunno.'

He made an irritated little noise in the back of his throat. Could feel a headache coming on. Maybe it was the cigar. Rich cigars tended to bring out the worst in him. Still, he had to do something about the child. Leaving her to mingle with his very select guest list was _not_ an option.

'Would you like some sweeties, child?' What did one offer children? It had been some time since he considered himself one. What candy did he enjoy? 'A ...lollipop? Perhaps?'

Her eyes widened and lit up as though he'd offered her the world. The teddy bear was smushed against her chest as she nodded excitedly.

'All you have to do for the lollipop is help me find your parents.'

'How?' She mumbled.

How indeed? He glanced up at the covert cameras he had around the ballroom and frowned. 'Why don't you come with me, hmm?'

She nodded, a little less sure now, and reached out to take his hand.

Adolphus waved her through his many security guards and right into his office. He could hardly claim to be at threat from a girl who still thought pink was the be-all and end-all of fashion. He'd barely sat down to bring up the security feeds when he felt that wrongness again. She was standing at the doorway, looking round the office critically. As though analysing the room - but that was just silly. A girl of her age could barely tie her own shoelaces. Never mind put her mind to doing any real harm. Especially with the best in personal security outside his office.

'Where's your big security man?' She frowned at him.

Adolphus pursed his lips. 'My _big security man_ is outside _._ ' He replied curtly. 'I do not like him being in here breathing down my neck while I work.'

'Oh,' She murmured quietly and rocked back onto her heels in thought.

'What do you parents look like?'

'Oh mommy's very _pretty_ and daddy's so _tall_.' She sighed. 'Hey mister...?'

'What?!' He demanded angrily. Pretty and tall would not help him narrow his search. At this rate, perhaps he should announce an auction of the little girl and see who gives the largest outraged cry. That would be surely an easier way to go about this.

But these were very select people in attendance. People he did not want as enemies - that much was obvious.

The little girl looked to the ceiling for a few seconds and asked 'What's the door made of? It looks _really_ heavy,'

'It's plated with titanium.' Adolphus replied. 'And I shall need better descriptions than _pretty_ and _tall._ ' After a few seconds of silence, he looked up and frowned to find her very gently turning the lock of the door. 'Child, what are you doing?'

She looked up at him with an expression he'd never seen on the pudgy face of a child before. It was one of intense calculation and one he'd seen on the face of his " _big security man_ " after Adolphus had told him to silence someone.

He shouldn't have been scared of a _six year old little girl_ , but something in his hindbrain was warning him to be terrified of her.

Deliberately, she gripped the fluffy teddy bear around the throat - and here, Adolphus noticed the cut at the neck of the bear - and pulled it wide. Stuffing flew everywhere as she fished out a deadly little combat knife.

Now, _now_ he knew he should be terrified of this little six year old girl in ribbons. The man - easily twice her size, stood and stumbled back as she barred the door with her small body and sneered 'Oh _don't_ try to run. Running in this dress is ridiculous.'

'Why are you doing this?!' He demanded.

She snorted and put on an innocent face. ' 'Cause you're a bad man. But mister? I'm an even worse kid.'

* * *

She leapt onto the roof fifteen minutes later, as the first of the people spilled out onto the street in wave after panicked wave.

The man hunched on the edge didn't seem to notice her presence at first, however as she grew closer to him - and she was sure she was silent about it - he turned to appraise her and grunted 'Mission report?' before returning to his binoculars.

'Target dead, no other casualties, unless you count my wounded pride at having been seen in this dress.'

He snorted and glanced down appreciatively at the crowd milling in the road.

She watched them scatter like ants. The operation - while usefully severing HYDRA's connection to another company they could exploit - would hopefully draw out a high ranking HYDRA member meant to be here, tonight. So far, it looked as though their _quality intelligence_ had fallen through.

He did not look happy, the sniper rifle remained untouched.

She fiddled for a moment, waiting and then asked hopefully 'Well? Is he there?'

'No.' The moonlight caught the metal of his arm - it would never be _quite_ covered by jackets and gloves - as he turned. 'We're leaving.'

'...Winter Soldier?'

He paused briefly, unaccustomed to being quite so formally spoken to and then turned down to the little red-headed girl looking somewhat nervous. 'What, Preying Mantis?'

'What is my evaluation?' She asked quietly and shifted in conspicuousness when he turned his intense gaze on her.

'...Adequate.' He grunted at last before walking away.

The girl - Preying Mantis - smiled briefly and hurried to catch up.

Onto the next mission - the next HYDRA base. The next bad man.

But please, God, no more dresses with ribbons. She was going to burn the one she was currently wearing - it was covered in too much blood.

* * *

A/N: Welcome to Fatherland where the question of _'What happens if we give a highly unstable former weapon/assassin a child?'_ is finally answered! With hilarity and _lots_ of poor parenting. There will be one or two story arcs within here, but essentially - the chapters will be whatever my twisted mind can come up with.

And WinterWidow. Did I mention the WinterWidow? There will be WinterWidow.


	2. Origin One: Meet Again

The Winter Soldier tended to remember events and dates based on stimulus he was exposed to. Sometimes it could be a song he'd heard en route to a mission, it could be a mug that a particular target was drinking out of - it could be a train. Trains tended to hold the worst of his memories.

This time it was a vodka bottle.

It brought to his completely scrambled mind a seemingly vague recollection of beautiful red hair and a name to his lips. _'Natalia.'_

The first real person seemingly outside of HYDRA he'd been able to recollect besides Steve Rogers.

Was she still alive? His memories tended to come without specific dates - just feelings. And he'd felt younger. In the confusion of his escape from HYDRA he'd never really understood how long he'd been in and out of Cryo-stasis. How long he'd been their _pet_. And it had been a long time.

Dwelling on it - them - only ever made him angry and that tended to draw out the nastier memories - things he was almost glad to forget. Mostly blood, terrified faces and torture. Sometimes it wasn't even men. It was women and children too.

That was not the man that the target - Steve, his name was Steve - seemed to think he was. He'd called him Bucky and the warmness with which he'd used that name made it apparent this Bucky was a friend.

Later, he'd found out his name was James Buchanan Barnes and he had indeed been Steve Rogers friend. Rogers seemed eager to re-establish the friendship but Winter Soldier just couldn't bear to delve any deeper into that. He had enough guilt hanging over him.

Natalia seemed easily the most logical next step. The next influential person he remembered beyond Steve.

* * *

Natasha Romanova had an apartment in New York that very few people knew of. There was always Avengers Tower - but that meant putting up with Tony and the very real possibility that an experiment he and Bruce were conducting could bring down at least three floors - and she liked her beauty sleep.

There was something safe about her apartment. Something all too familiar she would never have in her official residence.

She didn't know why she let Hill convince her and May to do the whole clubbing scene. It just wasn't something that had ever appealed to her - or come to think of it - May. It hadn't been that bad - she'd worn that black halterneck dress that Pepper had given her for Christmas; Something the other woman would surely feel pleased about. She walked the polished wooden floor, heels in hand towards door 616 and _home_. Looking forward to the comfort of a familiar place with absolutely no-one there to make cheesy pick-up lines and propositions at her.

It wasn't lavishly decorated - there were no pictures on her walls of teammates or ex lovers and she had no family. There were no trinkets or tokens from missions or people either.

The space was as bare as could be and she liked it as such.

Except now it contained one Winter Soldier.

Natasha stood there - one hand on the door handle and the other clutching her killer heels, staring at the gun he had pointed at her face.

'Natalia?' He grunted, clearly confused by her appearance.

She didn't know what she expected to hear from him, but that was not even close to the top ten.

A thousand thoughts made their way through the alcohol. What was he doing here? Was he here to kill her? To get information? ...Was he remembering? 'James?' She asked cautiously.

There was a flicker in his eye, she caught it. He recognised her voice, he recognised _her_.

'What are you doing here?' She demanded as the gun lowered.

'I...' He shook his head, as though trying to dislodge something.

Natasha took a quick survey of him in his distraction. He looked well built still - but she could tell a few pounds had been shaved away. He was grimy, still in a combat vest and the greasepaint that Steve had last seen him in.

Gently, she eased closer. 'James? James. Perhaps you-' He wasn't paying attention. Her jaw tightened and she slipped into a much older language than English. It had been some time since she'd used Russian. ' _I think you need a shower, James._ '

A shower was the best place to start she guessed. She could smell him clear across the room.

That snapped him out of it - but not the way she expected. He lashed out, hard. Caught by surprise, Natasha dumped her shoes and fell into a defensive stance.

It may have been years since they had last sparred but there were some things that the body never forgot. She felt - briefly - like she were back in the training ring with him, taunting him. Flirting with him.

He struck out with that metal arm, and succeeded in leaving a fist shaped dent in her wall as she avoided it. Instinct took over and she struck his knee, causing him to fall to one leg and aimed a blow for his face, but he dodged it and grabbed her by the scruff of the halterneck dress.

She was flipped - painfully, but she had long ago grown accustomed to ignoring pain - over the couch and into the wall, leaving another dent in her wake but there was no time to really get her bearings. Training kicked in and forced her up and away from her landing spot just in time to dodge the flesh and blood hand reaching for where her neck would have been if she'd still been in the same place.

Perhaps that would have been the kinder option. She lashed out at him after her dodge but was shoulder-slammed away with his metal prosthesis.

She'd never invested in a coffee table, or much in the way of furniture, and she was glad she hadn't as anything in the floorspace would have been undoubtedly destroyed by now.

He was on her in a second, the metal arm this time around her neck.

Natasha Romanova knew that attempting to use brute force to pry it off would not end well and all it would require was a twist of that powerful arm to snap her neck.

'Who,' He demanded, breathing heavily ' _Are_ you to me?'

If she could keep him talking - if she could force some memories to the surface - then she had a chance to avoid bloodshed. Probably hers. She wasn't as powerful or as destructive as Winter Soldier. She hadn't exactly been a demure wallflower after their separation - but neither had he and he had generally always won their tussles in the past.

Clearly he knew she was someone of importance. If he had wanted her dead from the outset he could have picked her off from a good three buildings away with his sniper rifle the minute she entered her apartment. He wanted answers and he had questions and she could work with that.

'You know who I am.' She replied against the slight choke he had her in. For a minute, he looked as though he wouldn't believe her challenge and she took a risk - grabbed his tactical vest, dragged him down to her level and kissed him.

He froze when he felt her lips on his but slowly, he reciprocated. The metal arm loosened against her throat. When they broke away - he looked a little less uncertain. 'You look...different,'

'It's the shorter hair.' She replied with a tentative smirk. Something had obviously jarred loose.

He did remember. He was just having a hard time reconciling the two images of Natalia and Natasha.

They lay in that awkward embrace long enough for it to be at least sort of uncomfortable with the knot of the dress digging into the back of her neck.

'James?'

'What, Natalia?'

'You know, it's Natasha now.'

'It will always be Natalia to me.' He replied simply. She found herself smirking. Somehow, she thought it would be. It was almost sweet the way he insisted on calling her by a name she had not been called in years.

It was sweet - and it dredged up a lot of memories of her own. Some good - some bad. Some she wished she could never remember at all.

She flipped them while he was feeling nostalgic. 'You need a shower.' She whispered against his lips.

'A what?' He frowned and she found herself doing the same.

'You need to get clean.' She repeated.

He seemed lost. Just what had HYDRA done to him these last few years? She sighed and made to sit up but he grabbed her arms in a hold that would have possibly been painful to anyone but her. 'Let go and I'll help you.' She murmured.

A new hardness had entered his eyes. 'Help me?' He asked dubiously. The fingers tightened on her arms.

She really should call Steve, and then there was that other thing waiting on her laptop for her attention - but James came first.

She smiled disarmingly. 'Just like old times. Do you remember old times?'

'Old times.' He snorted but his hands fell away from her arms and settled on her hips. 'Yes.'

He had...relaxed. He still trusted her. All these years later.

She wasn't sure whether that was incredibly romantic or just plain stupid.

Clearly, he hadn't changed much.

* * *

A/N: I mentioned the WinterWidow. Here it is. This has some bearing on what Preying Mantis is - if you just completely ignored the synopsis - but no. Mantis is not arriving the normal way - with those two just having sex. Nor is she one for 'conventional' and Widow is pretty much sterile anyway (broke my heart when I watched it because patently - the woman would love a child. And then I made Mantis a daddy's girl because _I'm mean._ )


	3. Sniper

The rifle was twice as big as she was - but she was able to cope with the massive size and weight difference.

Beside her, Soldier was giving a running commentary on things she needed to do. Adjust the scope for the height and wind speed, lay out the catcher cloth for the casings, check the rounds-

She had briefly wondered why he hadn't switched to an automatic adjusting scope before she remembered that he was _old_. And that was not the hypersensitive musings of a six year old - he was almost ninety years old. And sniping - to him - was an art form all it's own.

Using an automatically adjusting scope - or a rifle that held the casings itself - would be sacrilege to him.  
It wouldn't be his artform. She let him ramble on, occasionally following an instruction here, a suggestion there.

She knew - like many - that her age placed restriction on the things she could and could not do. She also knew that she was an incomplete weapon - Winter Soldier had rescued her before her training had been completed.

There were gaps in her knowledge that she undoubtedly wanted to be filled and that required a level of on-the-job training.

Sniping lessons were one of them.

'Have you calculated the wind drag and adjusted accordingly?'

'Yes.'

'When was the rifle last maintained?'

She glared up at him from her prone position. 'Seriously?!' She demanded.

'You should know these things.' He replied solemnly. 'They will impact your performance.'

'Yesterday!' She defended, going pink at the scolding. 'You sat in front of the damn TV, watching the news and cleaning your gun with a horrible - with _THAT_ look on your face!'

Soldier sniffed angrily. 'I did not have a look on my face.'

Mantis returned to her scope with a lightly snorted 'Right.' And she was Lady Death. For a man who had thought himself a weapon for almost seventy years, he was very good at picking up humanity again. Like being a _complete_ and utter _liar_.

'Do you see your target?' He asked.

Did she? with all the bitching back and forward about it, she hadn't paid attention. Preying Mantis refocused on the task and scanned the area until she found him. 'Got him.'

'Distance?'

She hazarded about 900 yards. Not a bad distance, but by no means easy for a first timer. Then again - she was who she was and Winter Soldier was a good instructor. They generally made impossible roll over for them. She wondered if he'd done this before and then snapped back to what she was doing. Complete focus was needed abd expected from him.

'Adjust again for distance.'

She did.

'Now, don't pull it back, squeeze gently until it fires itself.' He instructed. As she added more pressure to the hairpin, she noted that his breathing had changed. It had gotten heavier and he'd loosened up. Like he was the one pulling the trigger. The gun fired suddenly and shocked her out of her analysis. It rammed back, deep into her arm, taking a piece of her shoulder, she was sure. The recoil was that strong.

'Target is dead.' She heard him mutter as frantic activity was going on below them. People were looking for the shooter - She was currently writhing around on the floor whimpering 'I think I broke a collarbone.'

Winter Soldier was not a sympathetic. He dragged her up and hauled her towards the rifle. 'pick it up and lets go.' He ordered. 'The rooftop's about to get busy.'

'My shoulder's in pieces!' She argued.

'If you don't pick up that rifle and move to the safe-zone - _YOU_ will be in pieces.' He warned.

'I'm six!' She snapped.

'And? Do you think they care? It will heal in a few hours.'

Yeah, he's done this before. Mumbling about the unfairness, Mantis grabbed the rifle and hefted the over-large gun onto her back, mindful of the shoulder.

Maybe she would stick to knives and swords and things that used such precision, you'd hardly know you'd been cut.

It was safer for her shoulder that way.

Grumbling the entire way, she hefted herself to the safe-zone.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, I'm not posting these in chronological order. It's mostly a collection of oneshots. Like I said - too many opportunities for _bad parenting_ for me to stick to one thing for long.

And the second part of the origins is giving me _hell_. I needed a break and this popped up.


	4. Origin two: Motivations

Natalia was in the trashed living room, staring at a cellphone as though attempting to come to some sort of decision. Winter Soldier watched her through the crack of the bedroom door.

He'd known she'd left the bed almost the instant she'd gotten out - despite her obvious attempts not to wake him. He'd lay there making sure she had no intention of returning before he stealthily got up and dressed to find out what she _was_ doing. Radioing in his position to back-up, perhaps? Captain Rogers? Or someone to whom she'd had longer ties?

He couldn't allow himself to be recaptured. He had missions to complete - targets to kill and he would not be put off.

In the last few months of total confusion, with a lack of memory input about this past his former target Captain Rogers seemed to elaborate on - Winter Soldier had done some digging with what he knew and had come to a decision.

No more. He would not be listening to his handlers or HYDRA any longer.

He was still wary of facing Captain Rogers again. He'd proven to be formidable - and a manipulator. _"With you til the end of the line"_ was obviously designed to appeal to his sentiment. If Winter Soldier had _had_ any sentiment, it had long ago been burned away. Or maybe it was some sort of conditioning word - designed to render him safe or turn his loyalties. Whatever it was - he was not sure what The Captain was.

Natalia had seemed like a good choice for an ally, now he wasn't entirely sure she was. She made another attempt to call someone - The Captain, probably - but strangled the urge at the last minute. Soldier wondered _why_. It wasn't like Natalia to hesitate at anything. She had always been completely and utterly devoted to whatever course of action she had chosen and he liked that about her.

 _He loved her._

He shook his head. Couldn't afford the concentration issues in such a potentially deadly situation. He looked away from her hesitating frame and towards the only other piece of furniture in the room besides the bed - the desk.

And on the desk - a computer.

He recognised the blinking light as the computer's rest-mode.

gently, he tapped it to wake it up.

 _Password?_

He thought for a second. Winter Soldier had been taught many things - including how to hack a computer. Sometimes HYDRA wanted files held in secure vaults that only he would be able to access.

Natalia's computer should not be too difficult. He knew quite a lot about Black Widow - far more, he suspected, than anyone else - so cracking her password seemed an inevitability.

He spent a few seconds trying out various passwords until he hit on one that worked. _Bolshoi._ Of course - the famous theatre.

The password granted him access to what she'd been doing last. She'd been trawling through the breached data she'd released to the internet on something called Project Preying Mantis.

Why was she interested in this particular project? Soldier frowned. Of all the things he had possibly expected out of Natalia - what was her interest in this particular file rather than covering her own - more violent - files?

He skimmed the information expertly but paused when he heard her pace close to the bedroom door in her dilemma.

When she passed, he stood back and stared at the monitor with something approaching...concern.

HYDRA had began work on an artificially made human being. Not a clone - more like a laboratory created child. With two different donors. _Winter Soldier_ and _Black Widow._ The project's main goal was to provide HYDRA with a replacement Asset should Winter Soldier fail or become unmanageable.

She was "born" roughly six years ago in a facility somewhere in Ukraine.

He had a child.

A daughter.

He knew what lay ahead of her if HYDRA were allowed to keep her. The physical scars were nothing compared to the mental ones. He would not allow them the satisfaction of creating another Asset. He would _not_ fight some poor thing like him.

Worse than him. She wouldn't know anything but HYDRA.

 _He had a child._

There wasn't much on Project Preying Mantis. Most of the information on her project location and current activity had been redacted or corrupted in the transfer to open waters - probably some kind of defense mechanism - but it held enough to have captured Natalia's attention - enough to catch his own.

Suddenly, he had a new priority mission. Hunt down HYDRA bases in the Ukraine until he found the one this child was inhabiting.

* * *

Natasha returned to the bedroom, cursing her cowardice. Steve deserved to know that Bucky was here - that he remembered her. But she could not work up the courage to open such a wound. Besides, she liked it when it was just the two of them. It seemed a lot less complicated that way and a lot safer. He was still the man she'd fallen in love with years ago.

And then there was the thing on her computer. She wasn't entirely sure how to approach that. Again - going to Steve or Stark seemed the simplest option. Involving her friends - but that would bring around a whole host more problems; The can of worms she'd opened when she'd dumped all of their files into the internet.

'James-'

She turned to look from the wrinkled, Barnes-less bedsheets to the awake computer and then to the window of her apartment - open and allowing the curtain to blow into the night. She instantly knew what he had done. She cursed in Russian and dialled a number.

'Steven.' She sighed heavily. 'I...need your help. It concerns Winter Soldier.'


	5. Rain

The compound they'd found themselves in was not very much. But at least they would not be sleeping in the stolen car tonight.

It stank of wet dog when it rained. Not that this place was any better.

The windows were streaked with water as the storm battered the motel - it leaked from the roof too, onto one of the beds. The room smelled stale and unused - seemed only partially clean, but with their immune systems - Soldier sincerely doubted they would catch anything from this room.

Winter Soldier disliked rain. They made his missions harder, his metal arm ache and made him restless.

It seemed the weather too, was making Preying Mantis restless. She paced the room, first checking for traps and surveillance equipment, then checking for vantage points.

Somehow, through her search she uncovered a dusty old cardboard box.

She streaked away the possibly years worth of dust to reveal a slightly faded, but nonetheless colourful slogan.

Monopoly. He remembered the game in a vague rainy afternoon way. It hadn't been widespread, but a memory surfaced - of two boys playing the game as wind and weather lashed the windows.

 _"You feeling any better?"_

 _"No," the boy wheezed and sulked. "But beating you at Monopoly sure helps."_

 _"Stevie, you little punk! You're cheating, aren't you?!"_

 _"Who needs to cheat when you're that bad at something?" The boy teased back breathlessly._

He found himself back in the motel, staring at a reserved and confused Mantis with the last dying rays of a smile on his face -The flashback fading fast.

He had the most ungodly urge to teach her how to play the game, and could not find many reasons to say no. She needed something to occupy her mind - the storm would be raging for at least the rest of the night - it would be a challenge to the both of them and it did not look like the box had been tampered with by the thick layer of dust on the cardboard. Nobody could have known that they'd be forced to detour here for the night on their way to one of HYDRA's safehouses.

They were...safe to proceed.

He gently eased open the box and began pulling out the contents, with her watching him critically.

'You have to choose your piece.' He settled cross-legged on the floor.

She glanced up at him 'Weapon?' She frowned.

'No.' He grunted and held up a little top-hat. 'These are your distinguishing markers. You must choose one.'

She glanced at the others on offer and gently picked up a small pewter piece in the shape of a dog.

Soldier chose a car.

He explained the rules to her and showed her how to take property and chance cards, how to get out of jail.

They played.

Winter Soldier was hardly surprised when she began to bend the rules. Find ways around it. _Cheat._ It showed a level of creativity in her that had, until then, been kept hidden.

And she was just as ruthless as he was.

It should not have been a surprise to him, therefore that within an hour of the game's beginning, the board was in pieces, the two were haunting opposite ends of the room and there was blood splattering the carpet (not that it hadn't seen worse).

The little redhead certainly had his temper. She had a lot of his best/worst qualities. He was not entirely sure whether or not he should be proud of that.

Soldier looked up from his corner when she made an inquisitive sound and pulled out - joy of joys - another dusty board game. 'What the hell is Clue?' She frowned.

He didn't know.

Mantis looked up and asked 'Should we find out?'

This was going to end with more bloodshed. He could see it.

* * *

A/N: According to the internet Monopoly was patented in 1935. A good ten years before - y'know. Anyway it could be a stretch for ten years to permeate into inner city Brooklyn but consider that a little white lie.

Again - according to the internet - Clue was patented in 1945. So Soldier would have little to no knowledge of the game which can only be a good thing. That game wrecks lives.

I have this insane need to be completely and utterly horrible to poor Winter Soldier - even though he deserves every ounce of sympathy he can get - I can't help myself.


	6. Origin Three: Choice

He eased into the room, the metal arm mostly covered by the white labcoat he'd stolen from a peg earlier.

She was sitting on a steel table, her little legs dangled but the rest was swathed in a set of scrubs that looked marginally too big for her frame. Her head moved ever so slightly when he entered the room.

She looked so small.

Reminded him of a little boy he thought he once knew. Tiny and underdeveloped. Always coughing, always fighting.

'I know you're not a doctor.' The little subject looked up at him from a curtain of red hair. It was the most astute and knowing gaze he'd seen in someone so young. 'You're Winter Soldier.'

Well the lab-coat fooled her for all of thirty seconds. Had they told her about him? What would they tell a potential asset about the current asset?

 _About her father?_

'You've gone rogue. Orders are to suppress you.' She answered swiftly, though she made no move to get up and physically attack him with what little weight she had.

'Why?'

She blinked slowly, her big brown eyes clearly confused - as though the question was absurd. 'HYDRA will it.'

'HYDRA also want to test on you and you don't want that, do you?' He asked.

Her jaw tightened. No, she did not like the doctors and nurses. Of that, he could relate. He wished he had the time to properly turn her against her creators but he did not have that luxury. Straight to the point. 'I'll give you a choice. You stay and endure pain for the rest of your unnatural life - or you come with me.'

Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly as she muttered 'You're giving me a...choice?' Clearly she had not expected that from him.

'You've never had one before, have you?' No, they wouldn't have given her one. Weapons never had a choice about what to kill, what to eat, how to act.

'No.'

'You have a chance to make your first.'

Clearly she thought it couldn't be that easy - and she was right. it wasn't. Leaving HYDRA's influence was dangerous and life threatening. HYDRA would and could hunt you to the ends of the Earth.

The girl looked completely confused. The concept that she had a choice in any of this would - of course - be completely alien to her. She had always been quite passive in what happened. Had no say in what they did. He knew that well enough too.

'What were they going to do?' He asked after a few seconds of the staring match they'd entered into.

'Bone-marrow extraction.' She mumbled and dropped her head to look at her knees - or possibly the floor.

He exhaled slowly. 'That's painful. I doubt they waste anaesthetic on things like you - do they? They just leave you to pass out from the pain.'

She looked up sharply and then away, but he could tell he'd hit a nerve. Her jaw was tense and her hands had bunched around the medical gown she was in. No, they didn't give the anaesthetic to the weapons. Just paralysed them to prevent them moving, squirming - _screaming_.

'You don't have to.' He cocked his head, waiting to see how well that statement was received. 'You can defect with me right now and never have to have one of those again.'

She didn't look up at him. Good, she was mulling it over. She was _thinking._ Had she looked up at him at those words, he would have possibly considered her a lost cause - she would have already made up her mind. But hesitation - hesitation in an answer was a good sign. Not completely under HYDRA control then. If she was - she would have rebuffed him without a second thought. She would have attacked him the second he gave her that choice.

That was where HYDRA went wrong. Children were easy to manipulate - but not just for their own goals.

A sound outside caught his hypersensitive hearing. More soldiers were coming. Clearly, they knew what his target was - or suspected, anyway. It was time to leave. He wasn't going to coddle her; he'd given her a chance - which was more than what he'd gotten.

'Well?' He demanded.

She frowned up at him.

'There are people on the way. If you want to leave, do so now.' He turned to make his way out of the door and heard her frantically scramble off the table to follow him. Soldier turned to look at the little girl cautiously following his six. 'Coming, then?'

'I'm only coming because staying there would be a possible death sentence. They'll know you made contact with me and that I'm potentially compromised.' She answered. 'And those stupid tests hurt like a _bitch_.' she added with venom.

Soldier smirked. Not dumb then. Wary, and hedging, but not _dumb_. And how does a six year old science experiment learn the word "bitch"?

She seemed unusually clever for an average age of about six. He'd had to wonder if it was a purely natural occurrence or if it was to do with the serum he and Natalia possessed within themselves. Certainly it had never been active in someone so young - if it was active at all - But judging by the fact she was alive and they were conducting tests - he could safely assume it was and he wasn't about to leave her here if she wanted freedom.

'Let's go.' He grunted.

* * *

A/N: I'm not sure whether I love or hate this, to be honest. I love the concept of their first interaction but it always seems a bit too fast for my liking. Then again, how long would it take _you_ to notice something as psychotic and/or destructive as Winter Soldier is in your facility abducting _your_ science experiment that someone is bound to ask about eventually?

Anyway wow I just noticed this thing has interest! Awesome. Anyway I have a few chapters outlined for upcoming events, however I am open to ideas - particularly around poor parenting - so if you've got one you want to see, drop it in a review or inbox!


	7. Mcdonalds

'Why exactly do they have so much packaging?'

Back Widow - currently in a leather jacket and jeans - shrugged and watched as Preying Mantis pulled out package after package with an occupied frown on her face.

Mantis paused as she caught sight of the manic grin on the side of the bright box. 'And what makes this meal so happy, anyway?' She frowned.

Natasha's lip tipped up. 'I have no idea.' She replied and watched as her daughter inspected the contents of a little plastic bag of fruit.

Currently they were on an "enforced bonding trip" with any and all attempt by Mantis to escape had proven fruitless. Eventually she had accepted the inevitable. She was simply not good enough to escape her mother's radar. The trip was at a semi-finish with Natasha introducing her to the joys of fast food since they had achieved the goal of absolutely no death whatsoever in three whole hours.

A knife came into Mantis' hand almost purely by magic and she carefully slit a bag open to inspect the contents. ' _That_ is fruit?'

Natasha resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the virtual disgust the young girl was adopting. Around them, other children screamed and hit each other _whilst_ they were screaming - their parents paid little attention. At least _those_ children never questioned the food.

Preying Mantis very gently tested the wrapper of her burger before she unwrapped it and peeled apart the bun and cheese.

She pulled a face. 'Eugh, I despise gherkins.' The knife very carefully shifted them to one side before very carefully cutting free a quarter of bun and burger.

Natasha was somewhat amused by her reaction. In some ways - Mantis was still just like a little girl; prone to picky eating and programmed with a preference for disliking everything that was good for her - even if she was developed enough to understand the need.

A ball from the tiny ballpit smacked into the back of her head and she turned with the knife, ready to carve apologies out of skin. Natasha coughed and she turned back to look at her sullenly. Retribution denied. 'Why are we here, anyway?' She asked.

'Because it's lunchtime.' Natasha replied simply.

'The food is garbage.' She complained.

'Oh? If it's so much garbage, then I'll just have to take this McFlurry and-'

'You wouldn't.' The little redhead snarled at the thought of losing her ice-cream.

'Eat your garbage, then.'

Both paused and the knife disappeared swiftly when a harried looking worker approached with a sheet of paper and a packet of sealed crayons. 'Hi!'

Mantis stared.

'We're having a colouring competition today! Do you want to give it a go?'

'I'd rather take a bullet.' She got a swift kick from under the table and received a glare from Natasha. She sighed. 'I suppose,' She amended at the confused looking worker. After all - it looked as though she hardly had a choice in it.

The woman beamed as though she couldn't believe it was that simple and slapped down a piece of paper bearing - joy of joys - another demented happy meal box.

Those things were unbelievably creepy - and _she_ was quite well versed in creepy.

'You just colour it in the way you think the box should look!' She smiled and then wandered off to attempt to get one of the kids throwing balls from the ball-pit to stop long enough to refocus on the paper.

Mantis stared at the paper and asked faintly 'What exactly is the point in this? It's child labour, isn't it? They're making us do all the design work but make it seem exciting and fun.'

'Pretty much.' Natasha agreed and stole her chips.

'Never bring me back here again.'

* * *

A/N: A little something different this week - Mother and daughter bonding session. I have got to feel sorry for Natasha - She'd love to play a mothering role if Mantis would let her. Or Bucky. Attempts to be normal do not go too well in this family unit.


	8. Origin Four: Escape

'Where are we going?'

Winter Soldier paused in his march and turned to look down at the much smaller figure having to practically run to keep up with him. 'Out.' He answered simply and looked away. He really should try not to pay too much attention to her - She looked like her mother.

It was more than the red hair - it was the way she gave him a cutting look, as though she'd misheard him. The way she stood - Natalia always did stubbornly refuse to hold herself properly. He knew that she had no idea she was doing it - she had never met either of them - but he couldn't help but be reminded anyway and that reminder was not something he needed right now.

'How?' She asked.

'Helepad.'

She looked up at him with a frown and he braced himself for her questions. Normally, questions were bad, but he'd been asking an awful lot of questions lately himself. He expected her to remark that the second they got the plane started - they would be targets for HYDRA - or perhaps a query about why they weren't taking another route out of the facility. The answer to that was simple enough.

It was remote to say the least - on the Ukraine/Russian border and isolated. On one side by a cliff; The other - a dense forest almost too thick for anything but a foot soldier to get through. It was also at least ten below. While that was not a problem for Winter Soldier - it could be for the little girl. She wasn't dressed for playing hide and seek in the snow.

Instead of any of that, she simply replied 'Okay.' in an accepting manner.

He frowned at that - but brushed it off. Weapons were not made to ask questions or complain or feel in any way. She was already showing promise with her sense of preservation. They could work on the rest.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by an alarm ringing close by. In a monotone Russian voice the speakers announced that lockdown protocols had been initiated.

Shit. They must have known that he'd made contact and they were now leaving.

'We have to move.' He snapped. They had to get as far as they could as fast as they could before they were locked out of areas.

He took off into a sprint as Mantis gasped 'Wait, what?!' And chased after him.

Around the next corner was not something Soldier had hoped to see. A blast door was sliding closed - cutting off their access to the facility. Obviously, someone was clever enough to initiate lockdown and try to seal them in.

The little girl had overtaken him for the rapidly closing door - seemingly determined to go through it. Soldier had long ago plotted the probability that it was going to close before they'd even gotten close - although she was welcome to try and get herself killed under the thick plated doors.

The blast door closed, just as he'd predicted and Preying Mantis had bounced off the thick, reinforced steel painfully. She hit the floor shoulder first.

Winter Soldier slowed to a stop and cursed in Russian, feeling for a control panel he could destroy but there were none on this side he could readily see.

He turned, listening for the advancing line of Agents working their way through the floors, looking for them and then down at Mantis, who was doing some calculating of her own on the floor.

'We're trapped.' She noted. Tried to sound off-hand but there was a warble of nervousness in there. She hadn't yet perfected how to hide her emotions.

He said nothing, well aware that she was merely stating the obvious and used the time to map the area they were in. It was a large corridor with barely any way to bottleneck what what could come around the corner. Winter Soldier was good - the best - but he did not want to risk getting caught and wiped or worse - executed. It was a very valid fear. There was also the little girl to consider. She had been right when she said knowing him would be a death sentence.

And he had given it to her.

Winter Soldier caught sight of a vent - too high and narrow even for him but not for the little redhead if he lifted her up.

'Hey,' He grunted.

She glanced up at him from the floor.

He pointed to the vent and asked 'You think you can get through the other side and unlock it?'

Something calculating had come into her face. 'I can try.' She nodded.

Using the metal arm - he'd never admit that HYDRA had given him something useful, there. He hated it; would prefer a real one - as a stepping point, Mantis swung up and spent a second balancing before she began to yank at the vent.

'Any time now.' Winter Soldier grunted as the sounds grew louder. It sounded like they were working their way methodically through the facility. It would only be a matter of time before they found him. Trapped.

'It's. Stiff.' She grunted angrily. With an ear piercing screech, the plate came free and she dropped it easily as she flung herself into the vent. With the sudden loss of her weight, Soldier turned and caught the cover before it could hit the floor and give away his position.

He cursed the amateur move. It was bad enough that someone might have overheard that vent being pulled loose but the clattering would draw attention to him - and he had no cover.

Her legs disappeared around the corner and left him alone.

It was entirely possible, he mused, that Preying Mantis could simply abandon him to his fate. Or worse - double-cross him. He could do very little against the blast door. Had nothing on him that could make a dent in it.

Natalia was going to kill him for this foolhardy move. All to get to the little girl first. He'd known that if Natalia got to her first - he'd never have seen her - known about her. And honestly, something deep down inside - something he classed as more James Barnes than Winter Soldier - wanted to know her. Very much.

Two minutes turned into four - and then six.

Surely it wasn't that hard?

The sounds were getting louder now - he could hear individual voices. What was she doing? Having a tea party?

The door seals suddenly disengaged and he stood back, away from it as it opened to reveal a gory mess - the floor awash with blood. Three soldiers, dead. Preying Mantis in a now bloodsoaked medical gown was clutching a knife and keycard, panting furiously. He looked from her to the bodies and back.

'What?' She demanded with laboured breaths. 'I had no choice.'


	9. Whiteout

White as far as the eye could see. Grey too - in places where the snow had been blasted away by the wind but this wind was no simple breeze. With no obstacles in it's path - the wind too was cruel and viciously unforgiving. Sending slivers of ice into your eyes, attempting to blind you - kill you.

Most of Russia sometimes seemed designed to kill you.

To a simple hunter like Stantin Filipov, that seemed to be the entirety of it. Life would try to kill you as soon as you were born - as though it regretted your very existence.

Yes, that seemed to be the long and short of it.

He'd been checking his traps for game when he first noticed the figure on the horizon. The tactical vest stood out like a black mark against the pure white of the snow around him. He wore no jacket - his arms bare to all that the freezing temperatures could throw at them and he trudged doggedly through knee-high snow.

But that could not be possible! They were out in the tundra. Miles from anywhere a _turisticheskiy_ could possibly stumble - and if he were not a tourist, what was he? Judging by the vest - some kind of military? Was he _voyennyy_?

It took the old man far longer than it should have to see that he was carrying something on his back doggedly across the snow. The little bundle was wrapped in a coat that should have been on him and most of what the old man could see was red - a bad sign.

The man, young and fit by the looks of him, seemed entirely unconcerned by the freezing temperatures or risk of frostbite to his exposed arms - arm. The other was plated in some kind of metal. Stantin did not like that. He asked in flawless Russian _'Can you direct me to the nearest outpost?'_

Stantin blinked in surprise. _'Where did you come from, friend? We are miles from the nearest point of civilization.'_

The man winced as he shifted his precious bundle and Filipov finally glimpsed the limp little thing. The red he'd seen on the horizon was hair. Judging by the length, a little girl. She was pale and unmoving, wrapped tight in the coat. It almost looked as though she were asleep - but most did when they died in the snow. Especially the children. Always looked like they were sleeping.

Filipov met the stranger's steely blue eyes, aware the man had seen his interest in what he carried.

 _'Our plane crashed.'_ He replied carefully. _'We were the only survivors.'_

That, at least, explained the smell of fuel and ash that had engulfed them as they talked. Stantin did not want to point out that it honestly looked like _he_ was the only survivor; The little girl looked to be dead.

 _'The nearest village is east.'_ He muttered and pointed. _'I can take you-'_

 _'Thank you, I'm sure I can find it.'_ He replied curtly.

Stantin was taken aback. Surely the man wasn't intending on walking the entire way there? It was at least ten miles over terrain that even his Jeep - the _der'movyy staryy rzhavymi_ it was - had trouble manoeuvring.

 _'I do not think you should do that, my friend.'_ He advised. The man shook his head. Clearly not wanting to trouble him, or possibly bring trouble to him. _'If not for you, then for the girl.'_ He added.

The man stiffened and glanced over his shoulder for a second, staring at the mass of red hair, waving in the harsh wind. He turned back and nodded to Stantin. _'Fine.'_

They walked to the truck silently and Stantin held the door open for him to lower the half-frozen bundle into the back seat of the car.

The poor little thing looked tiny, engulfed by the thick jacket and the seat.

 _'Perhaps you should take the coat for yourself?'_ Stantin asked carefully.

 _'No.'_

That was the end of that. He did not want to push this man. The tundra could do funny things to a person's mind. Especially when - Stantin got into the driving seat and glanced at the back of the car for merely a second before starting the ignition - You had been through something so traumatic.

They said not a word to each other, though the stranger occasionally looked at the bundle on the backseat of the Jeep. Despite attempting to keep his mind off of it - because questions only led to trouble out here - he still had to wonder was she his daughter? Or could he simply not bear to leave her corpse to the unforgiving wind and snow? It was questions that he dare not put to the seemingly cold-resistant man - he seemed more than capable of causing trouble.

Stantin left them at the outpost as planned, the metal armed man clutching the bundled coat to his chest. That should have been the end of it - the hunter watching the rapidly fading silhouette of him clutching what was probably his daughter to his chest, refusing to believe she was dead - from his rearview mirror

Two days later, however he was interrogated by some very efficient people.

They had barged into his shack in the middle of the night, didn't bother to ask for valuables - though they ransacked his home well enough. They were not here for petty change.

At first he thought they were KGB - or ex-KGB but that didn't track right. Their Russian was not as flawless as the stranger's had been, nor did they seem to particularly enjoy the lovely Russian weather. They did ask plenty of questions about the stranger he'd rescued from the wilderness. What they'd spoken about, what he'd done, the little girl he was carrying - they'd asked if she was still alive. Stantin had laughed despite the fact that they'd just dislocated three of his fingers at the top joint and movement really hurt - they'd kept asking and asking about her as though she were still alive.

He told them she was dead - looked dead - but they just continued as though they doubted his story.

He told them all he knew but it did not seem to be enough to satisfy them.

However, hours later, after his leg had been broken and his hands were mangled - after teeth and nails had been pulled and deep-set bruises inflicted - they left him.

And Stantin Filipov regretted ever helping that stranger and his child.

* * *

A/N: No good deed goes unpunished as they say.


	10. Perimeter

It was some time close to three am when Winter Soldier heard the door creak open and found himself instantly awake. He was always very good at telling the time by internal clock.

The creaking door continued to widen as he shifted - seemingly in his sleep and reached under his pillow for the combat knife he'd stashed in there earlier.

'...Soldier?'

God, it was just Mantis. He really needed to put a bell on that kid. If he'd been having a relapse, there'd be blood all over one of Natalia's walls by now and she'd be trying to separate his head from his shoulders. His hand retreated from the blade.

He rolled over and grunted tiredly. It had been a long few days and Natalia had grudgingly allowed them to stay. Which would be nicer if Mantis would stop it with the nightmares. It had been happening on and off for about a year and was fast becoming more than a nuisance - Then again, his own mental health wasn't anything to brag about. Occasionally, he was right there with her, reliving horrible memories in his sleep.

'What is it, Mantis?' He grunted tiredly.

'The perimeter is insecure.' She whispered.

Perimeter- was that her way of saying there was a monster under her bed? Winter Soldier wanted nothing more than to tell her to go back to bed - but a rib shot from Natalia indicated otherwise.

With a groan, he sat up and mumbled something scathing in Russian as he pulled the knife from under the pillow and staggered out into the hallway. Mantis pointed down into the darkness of the apartment. Definitely not something under her bed, then.

'Why do you believe the perimeter has been breached?' He sighed tiredly as they looked down the pitch black corridor.

'I heard noises.' She defended.

'And you couldn't do reconnaissance for yourself because...?' He demanded.

She fell into silence but in the moonlight he could see her looking up at him with those big hazel eyes. She was scared. Actually scared. He forgot that she wasn't even ten yet; barely older than five - she was allowed to be a child sometimes. Soldier sighed and tightened his grip on the knife. 'Alright. We'll check perimeter. But after, you go back to bed and you _stay there._ '

Mantis seemed to relax and nodded her understanding - glad to have someone there with her.

Now that he'd committed himself to a sweep, he grumbled. His bare toes were freezing. They'd do a fast sweep of the apartment and he'd tell her to get her ass back to bed - he wondered if Natalia would be still awake when he got back. That would be a nice thought.

They made a simple sweep of Mantis' room and the hallway before veering into the Living room/dining room combination. No sign of anything amiss. He was about to tell her to get back to bed but decided that they might as well finish the sweep before he lost his temper. The last place they needed to investigate was the kitchen. Soldier stepped through the door quietly just in time to find someone rooting through the kitchen drawers. He'd had barely registered that before he reached out and gently lifted a frying pan from Natalia's overhead pan rack.

 ** _GLOING._**

Simple, elegant, a hell of a lot of noise. There was something so very satisfying about using kitchenware in a fight - it was easier than participating in a knife-fight in a kitchen the size of a walk in wardrobe.

'Mantis, get the duct tape.' He growled.

* * *

The would be burglar was tied to a dining room chair on the roof. They woke him up with a bucket of freezing water. In the cold night air, he shivered violently and stared at the grown man in nothing but sweat pants and the little girl in My Little Pony pyjamas gently cleaning her nails with a combat knife.

'Who do you work for?' Soldier growled.

'W-work for?' He spluttered and shivered violently in the cold, trying to ignore the serious hardware on Winter Soldier's arm - or the nonchalant way Praying Mantis was playing with the knife.

'HYDRA?' He demanded and used a foot to ease the chair over the edge. It wobbled as the poor man freaked out. 'The Russians?'

'I don't know no fucking Russians!' The man howled. 'I - I just - I rob houses man.'

The chair was tilted back even further to the sodden intruder's terror. 'Please!' He begged. 'I'm telling the truth!'

There was a pause as Winter Soldier considered the possibility that this man was not a soviet spy or HYDRA agent tracking them. He was simply stealing to support a drug habit. Well, he knew an excellent one step program. 'Do you know what they do to burglars in Russia?' He asked after a considerable pause.

The man shook his head and shivered again. The cold water and freezing wind clearly wearing down the very little willpower and resolve he had.

Winter Soldier gave the chair the gentlest of pushes and watched as it clattered over the roof. He and Mantis listened to the terrified screams all the way up until they heard a distinct bang.

'Well,' The little girl murmured. 'Remind me never to get caught stealing anything in Russia.'

Winter Soldier smirked.

They met Natalia in the corridor in her dressing gown. She seemed particularly unhappy. 'Where were you two?'

Mantis looked to Winter Soldier to field the wrath of Mom. He shrugged. 'Perimeter check. Bonding.'

She raised an eyebrow in disbelief. 'Okay.'

'Can we go back to bed now?' He grunted.

'Sure.' Natalia said with a bright, brittle smile. 'I've just got one question - where's my dining room chair?'

* * *

A/N: That is one unlucky burglar. And also one awkward explanation about how Natasha's dining room chair became firewood. She was more upset that he tipped the chair over the roof than the fact that someone was tied to it.

 **Guest:** Preying Mantis does in fact have a name. She wasn't made with a "real" name in mind - more a codename but she was given one after Bucky's simply superb rescue. It's Florence. Florence Barnes-Romanova. I just haven't had a chance to use that just yet. HYDRA didn't name her - Natasha and Bucky were too busy arguing - Steve named her because one of his favourite paintings is on Florence, Italy. Neither parent particularly liked it - but Mantis did and refused to entertain any other idea. Honestly - they should feel themselves lucky. Tony would have called her something like Killzword or Sarah Connor. (I'm sorry Terminator fans, truly.)


	11. Good Morning!

A/N: I've been caught up in other projects, but I do have more chapters planned for this. This is a lead on from the last _Origins_ and _Whiteout._ Preying Mantis meets and is about to meet the wrath of mom. Also, flashbacks are fun! Whiplash is not. (Now considered AU since the Civil War trailer. Awesome.)

* * *

It was warm and bright, and that seemed wrong to her. It was soft and comfortable and somehow, that seemed wrong to her too. Mantis hadn't yet opened her eyes, but already she was on high alert. Eventually she struggled against the tide of tiredness and the almost seductive want to continue sleeping enough to open them.

The room was mostly cream and lit up in shades of sunlight that filtered through the open curtains of the room in a way that screamed late afternoon. She was in a large bed, wearing some kind of t-shirt as a nightdress.

It was warm and bright and not at all like...

 _The plane was shaking, throwing boxes from one end to the other. Through the debris, the little red-headed girl dragged herself up towards the controls. She'd been sleeping at the back; it had been a long day of defying her elders, after all and had only been woken up when she was pitched into the row of seats in front._

 _'What's going on?!' She yelled at the pilot. Winter Soldier looked grim as he glanced at her barely holding onto the co-pilot's seat._

 _'HYDRA have noticed our leaving.' He replied dryly and flexed his metal arm on the steering column of the plane, fighting the turbulence. She wouldn't believe that that had been part of the plan and judging by his face he was not going to be losing them any time soon._

 _There was a steady pocpocpocpocpoc from behind and Mantis turned to watch as the fuselage of the plane was peppered with bullet holes._

 _From beside her, Winter Soldier cursed in another language. Warning alarms began to blare around them. A wind - let in by the various holes - whipped at her hair as she turned back and yelled above the noise 'This is a bad rescue!'_

 _He snarled as he fought with the now sluggish plane. 'Strap in, now!'_

 _'What? Why?!'_

 _'Because they've managed to hit the hydraulics and fuel lines.'_

 _She didn't need to be told that without hydraulics, it would be incredibly difficult to control the plane and without fuel - it was only a matter of time until they crashed._

 _And that was only if it wasn't ignited and the plane exploded in must have crashed, then._

 _with a curse she pulled herself around and began buckling up into the co-pilot's chair, dimly aware that the straps would never hold her - she was still physically six. These chairs were not designed to cage in anything but an adult._

This was not the Russian wilderness. This was somewhere much closer to the equator judging by the sunlight.

They must have crashed, then.

And everything _hurt_. There were large welts and scratches up and down her visible arms that she couldn't explain. From the impact of the plane she guessed. They were not fresh either; a few days old, perhaps.

How had she gone from the Ukraine to...here?

She couldn't stop her training from kicking in, even now. Her eyes looked over the room critically, searching for anything that would give her an edge, an answer, a _weapon_ and that was funny because she _was_ the weapon.

The room was obviously of a woman. The hairdryer, make-up and jewellery scattered across the vanity almost confirmed it. The whole room smelled like perfume. An expensive one, if Mantis were to judge. It also smelled very faintly of something else - guns. Guns had a distinctly unique metallic smell. The dust and smoke mixed with oil.

There had been absolutely no decoration done to this at all. It had been left generically white. Clothes littered the floor in one corner with an overflowing hamper. More than one article of clothing was suspiciously rust red. Blood?

She was brought out of her critical view of the stains by a pair of suddenly raised voices, speaking in a language that was not English.

 _'You disappear on me for months and then suddenly turn up again with a child you broke out of a HYDRA research facility? Are you insane, Bucky?'_

 _'I couldn't leave her there!'_ He snarled _. 'I know what it's like. I couldn't stand by and-'_

 _'I know what it's like too, but you can't just go crashing in there because it's the right thing to do!'_

 _'You weren't even going to tell me about her, were you? You knew Natalia! And you would have said nothing!'_

Mantis listened with a half-cocked ear to the blazing row in...Russian, if she were correct. She recognised the sound of Winter Soldier's voice, but not the woman he was arguing with. For now it seemed to be a petty argument and nothing more phys- No, that was the sound of furniture breaking and the woman - Natalia - yelling.

 _'Every time you come here, you break my furniture!'_

Curious. Judging by what Preying Mantis could understand, they had not been here long and neither Winter Soldier nor the woman he was arguing with knew that she was awake. She could be out of the window and gone before they ever did. That thought was almost like a safety net to her. She was safe. For now.

Which gave Mantis _plenty_ of time to panic about what she'd just done. She'd disobeyed HYDRA. She'd ran away with a known enemy. She'd become worse than compromised - she'd become a traitor. Rogue - just like Winter Soldier.

And HYDRA would not suffer rogue agents.

As long as she breathed, she would be a target.

Winter Soldier had brought them here, and if Winter Soldier trusted, then that trust was hard earned and valuable. Even though this Natalia seemed entirely unhappy at him, she wasn't threatening to inform someone of their presence here. But that being said - Mantis barely trusted Winter Soldier.

It would probably take her a maximum of about twenty minutes to break into some family's home and steal a disguise if she made for the window right now. Another hour possibly to locate some kind of cover.

 _'Do you know what she is, James?'_ It was softer, more intimate.

 _'Of course I do,'_ Winter Soldier replied roughly. _'She's my- our - daughter.'_

She was tired. Too tired to deal with what was inevitably coming. Another confrontation and conflict. Maybe not now, but soon. She wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep and forget that she'd just done the stupidest thing on Earth, forget that she'd survived a plane crash and frostbite and Winter Soldier's insanity - Especially Winter Soldier's insanity. She was sure that it was catching.

The argument had petered out into virtually nothing - the last words more than enough to stall whomever this Natalia was. Mantis hastily closed her eyes at the sound of light footsteps and slowed her breathing as the door creaked open.

The smell of the perfume increased and it was all she could do not to sneeze as it invaded her nose.

A warm hand gently touched her forehead and then her cheek, looking for something. If it were her temperature, she was sure that a thermometer would be a better judge than a hand. She could feel the ghost of breath across her face as the woman leaned down and whispered into her ear 'I know you're not asleep.'

Shit.

She rolled out of the bed and up onto her feet like an acrobat, aware dimly in the back of her head that the red-headed woman now standing with the bed between them hadn't reacted in the slightest to her sudden move.

 _Expert._

'Where am I?'

She smiled capriciously. 'You're safe.'

'Irrelevent.' Mantis replied in a more authoritative voice than a six year old should hold. 'Where am I?'

'New York City.'

New York? How had he gotten them across two continents that fast? How long had she been incapacitated? She didn't want to know. The red-head moved suddenly and Mantis reacted by grabbing the first thing within her reach - a pair of...eyelash curlers? 'Stay. There.' She warned.

Natalia held up her hands in surrender and asked 'You know what to do with those?'

Well, no. But she didn't need to know that. 'Just stay there.' She snapped. Just because Winter Soldier trusted her, that didn't mean Mantis had to. Mantis was conditioned to trust absolutely no-one.

'Do you know who I am? the red-head asked as Winter Soldier appeared at the door. To Mantis, there was a hint of hunger there that she didn't like. Like this woman was desperate for her to know who she was.

'Irrelevent.'

Soldier snorted and Natalia turned to give him a glare before turning back to Mantis and painting on a brittle smile. 'I'm your mother.'

'I don't care.'

If words were weapons, then Mantis had, perhaps, delivered a deep blow. The signs weren't there for very long, but they were there long enough for an educated amateur like her to notice before the red-head managed to school her face into a smooth blank. When she next spoke, something a little harder had entered her voice - clearly, she was done trying to be nice. 'I see.'


	12. Date Night

Natasha Romanov dropped down behind the concrete barricade and took stock of what she had left to work with - aware, as always, that she was being shot at. This alone was sufficiently humdrum enough for her to carefully ignore the sounds of her cover being chipped away and focus on inventory.

Down to a pair of pistols and her taser bracelets.

This was not going well.

She stiffened as someone else leapt the barricade and landed heavily beside her. Black combat uniform, buffed metal arm. He turned and grinned at her beneath a curtain of brown hair. Of course _he_ was enjoying himself. 'You come here often?' Winter Soldier asked in flawless Russian and despite herself, she smiled.

What an American thing to say.

'I have to admit,' She replied as she checked the charge on her taser. 'I wasn't quite expecting this when you told me we were having a date night.'

'What's not to love?' He demanded and checked the gun in his hands expertly. 'You're not disappointed, are you?' James Barnes glanced up at her from under that curtain of unruly brown hair with puppy-dog eyes.

'I expected one of those tired old cliches of dinner and a movie.' Natasha replied seriously. 'You surprise me, James.'

He snorted but smiled at her nonetheless. 'I am full of surprises.'

She found a smile creeping up her own lips as well.

They both paused as an ear-splitting bang emanated from over the concrete barrier and it crumbled slightly on the impact - leaving a long crack of exposed steel rods on show.

'They're getting serious with what they throw at us,' Natasha noted.

His smile had slipped again as they returned to the task at hand. 'It's about time. Shall we?' Barnes asked and gestured to the people left firing on them.

One more check of her ammo and Natasha nodded 'Lets.' She replied.

Both of them dived over the barricade and into the onslaught.

It wasn't quite the night Natasha had expected, but it was one of the more fun ones.

* * *

A/N: Have a little WinterWidow. I don't play with this ship nearly as often as I'd like. Expect random WintweWidow drabbles around 500 words long now and then.


	13. Mantis is not a name

Steve Rogers watched the tiny child pacing in front of the glass partition of the Helicarrier's medical wing.

She looked like a mini-Natasha. But it wasn't all Nat. There were hints of Bucky too. Whenever her jaw tightened, whenever she evaluated someone, the look was familiar. It was too cool - too Barnes.

'She's a little girl.' He muttered, watching her. If he thought that speaking the words aloud would help him understand, he was very wrong. He was only more confused. He knew HYDRA were evil - but this was beyond contempt. 'What could they possibly want to do with a six year old girl?'

'Don't know.' Natasha sighed from beside him. 'The files were redacted - corrupted. Maybe both. She doesn't know much, either. They were apparently just holding on to her and conducting tests.'

Oh sweet Lord, were they planning to make more?

'You saw Bucky. He just left her with you? Is he...okay?' Steve frowned. That didn't sound like his friend. His friend - well, he'd never talked about having kids. But he knew deep down that Bucky Barnes would have been the best damn father he'd known. He wouldn't just leave his child after he went through such lengths to get to her.

'He was being chased, I think.' Natasha murmured. 'They must've known he'd come through New York. Try to make contact with me. He chose to draw them off.'

 _That_ sounded like his friend. Steve's heart ached at the thought. He should be here, with them. Recovering. Not hiding from the people who had kept him prisoner for the last seventy years.

He suspected that Natasha knew more than she was telling him - and she was much less accepting than she was leading everyone to believe.

Having a child dropped on you can do that, he supposed.

'Can she see us?' Steve frowned and watched her little head make her eighth loop of the room restlessly.

'Two-way glass.' Natasha murmured just as the door opened and Banner entered the room.

They'd brought Banner into this? Of course they had. Probably figured his nature would help keep the little girl calm. She was a very recent defector of HYDRA. A calm, caring nature and - not to put Banner down - being small and seemingly incapable of defending himself would work to relax her. No threat - no motivation to attack. The intercom also picked up the conversation happening on the other side of the glass.

'Hello. I'm Bruce. What's your name?'

'Mantis.' It was wary and tried to be measured, but Steve could hear the note of caution in her voice.

'Her name's Mantis?' He demanded and looked at Natasha.

'It was her project name. Project Preying Mantis.' Natasha replied, her eyes never leaving the pale, pointed face.

'I get that but - you didn't name her? Let her pick a normal name?'

'Why would I do that, Steve?' Natasha turned to him and frowned.

'Because she's your daughter?'

Nat scoffed. 'She was genetically grown in a lab and trained to do god knows what.'

'She looks exactly like you.' Steve replied. 'I thought you'd be thrilled.'

'Why? Because I can't have children? Should I be _thankful_ that HYDRA decided to use my DNA and make me a child? I don't _trust_ it.' Natasha replied. Steve corrected himself - she was definitely not as accepting as she was leading everyone to believe. It _was_ too good to be true - but she was here and she was six years old. Surely she should be given the benefit of the doubt?

Back in the lab, Banner had approached her and said quietly 'I'm going to need some bloods-'

Steve could see the shift almost immediately. The little girl - Mantis - had become instantly defensive the second he'd moved close to her. 'Tasha-' Steve warned.

Bruce must've sensed the hesitation too. 'I'm trying to help you.' Bruce said gently. 'I'm a doctor.'

Steve watched as the child's hand shot out across the nearest table and grabbed a glass beaker - thankfully empty. Natasha had already sensed what was going to happen and immediately launched herself for the door just as the sounds of glass shattering erupted from the speakers. Faint but getting louder - and more insistent - was the sounds of Bruce's heart-rate monitor.

Steve overtook her easily and burst into the room first as Mantis picked up another and reared back to throw it.

There was no way he was tackling a six year old little girl. Instead, he stood in front of the crouched Banner and ordered her to put it down. The situation paused, but Steve could still see she was calculating behind those big brown eyes. She just hadn't settled on a move yet.

Bruce's watch slowly began to calm it's incessant beeping as he controlled his breathing. The last thing anyone wanted - least of all Bruce himself - was a full on Hulk out. The Helecarrier couldn't take another one. Had barely survived the first.

Natasha came up behind him and Steve could hear her talking to Bruce in a low voice, keeping a lid on the situation.

Which left Steve to deal with the unstable and seemingly afraid little girl.

'Why did you do that?' He asked gently.

She remained silent, glaring, calculating.

'I can't help if you don't tell me what's going on, Mantis.' The name sounded so odd when applied to such a small, wiry thing. She reminded him of the way he and Bucky used to be. All stick, no muscle - and a tendency to get into fights bigger than them. 'Tell me what's wrong.'

Not a muscle twitched.

Steve sighed, resigned to getting nowhere but he wasn't going to be satisfied until he could get that second beaker out of her hand. 'I know…. I know you must be scared -'

She sneered and reared back to throw the glass when Steve asked - mostly in desperation - 'How about Florence?'

For the first time she actually spoke, her face full of genuine confusion. 'What?'

Hardly witty repertoire. But he'd gotten her to talk at the very least. Getting someone to talk was far harder than encouraging them to keep talking. 'A name. You need a name. I was thinking Florence.'

The beaker lowered a fraction and he risked glancing backwards to check on Banner and Natasha. She was frowning at him with her signature 'If I wasn't busy, you'd be getting your ass kicked' but was too engrossed in Banner to really focus on Steve - for now.

'I like art. And I saw a painting the other day of Florence - that's in Italy - in the autumn. It was covered in warm browns and reds - all the trees and the coloured tile shining in the sunlight -'

She really did look like Natasha - she had that incredible ability to look at you in complete confusion and incredulousness and _still_ think you were an idiot on top of that. He supposed it was a family trait.

'What do you think?' He persisted. 'Put the beaker down Florence.'

That - that was a mistake. He knew as soon as he'd done it - it was a mistake. She reared back to throw it when Natasha came out from behind him and floored her. The beaker shattered across the floor but Nat had more than enough of a handle on the small girl to ignore any possible shards slicing her way.

He'd have felt that Natasha was perhaps being overly zealous with her restraint, was it not for the fact that the girl's parents were Winter Soldier and Black Widow and up until then, Steve was about to be hit in the face with a beaker going at speed.

When Natasha looked up at him, he knew that this wasn't over.

* * *

A/N: I have about a dozen of these all sitting in my folder all waiting to be finished. Unfortunately, Mantis is being stubborn.


	14. Weapons don't have names

Part 2.

'Florence?' Natasha demanded with an irritated sigh.

'You weren't going to name her.' Steve muttered. 'And it worked -'

'All the way up until you used it.' The assassin pointed out. A wry smile on her lips. Probably thinking about Steve's face when the little girl went to peg him with the beaker.

Said little girl was now securely tied down to a chair in medical, being attended to by a very edgy Bruce and being watched by Clint.

Steve chafed at the very idea of having to restrain a child like that but understood the need. What had come out of her mouth while she was being "restrained" was decidedly not sugar and spice. He was pretty sure he now knew how to curse in three languages and none of them were English.

'What would you have called her?' He asked.

'Lilya.'

Russian, of course. 'Lily?' He asked.

She shrugged with another secretive smile. 'It's still better than _Florence._ '

Natasha was just not going to let him forget that - clearly. 'Why did she attack Banner?' He wondered. 'He wasn't being threatening - he wasn't even near her.'

'She doesn't like doctors.' Natasha replied.

That - that made some sort of sense. She hadn't become outwardly aggressive until Banner had identified himself as a doctor. But a reaction like that was beyond a simple fear of medical people. 'Why would she not like doctors?' Steve wondered.

Natasha was giving him that look again. Like he was too innocent to really understand. 'Why do people like Armin Zola exist?' She replied.

Steve shifted uncomfortably.

'She was an experiment.' Natasha replied in a complete monotone which somehow made him feel worse. 'Experiments are tested and re-tested to find out what's wrong with them, how they work. What can be done to _improve_ the method.'

Steve turned to look back into the room where "Florence" was now glaring daggers at Banner as he took bloods. When it was put to you like that - how could she not hate doctors? Such a short little life filled by pain and orders given by shadowy people in control of everything around her. It must've taken all the courage and defiance she had to go with Buck.

It must've taken all Natasha's courage to break free of the Soviets.

'I need to make some calls.' Natasha murmured and walked away, leaving Steve to stare almost forlornly at the scene.

He wished Bucky were here - although perhaps that wasn't the best thing to wish for. But he wanted to at least take him to one side and make sure that he was alright. That he understood that he was a _father_.

Clint looked up at the two-way glass and nodded towards the door. He wanted to talk to Steve.

'How's Nat taking this?' Barton asked gently when they were out in the corridor.

Steve ran a hand down the stubble of his jaw and glanced at Clint. 'You know Nat. She's hard to read when she wants to be.'

Clint nodded. He knew better than anyone how true that was. 'Where is she now?'

'She said she had to make a few calls.' Steve replied. Clint nodded, having expected it.

'I'm worried about her,' Hawkeye murmured, clearly having worked up to this.

'It's Natasha.' Steve replied and clapped him on the shoulder reassuringly. 'She can handle anything.'

'Even a sociopathic daughter?' Clint asked with a smirk.

Steve chuckled. 'Of course. And she'll have us to help her.' He agreed. 'But sociopath? Really?'

'I call them like I see them.' Clint replied.

The two paused. Listening to the creak and the roll of the Helicarrier. Clint frowned and then looked up at Steve. 'Is it me or is it too quiet in there?'

They both turned and lunged for the door.

Mantis was gone. Banner was out cold, slumped against a table.

'Bruce? Bruce!'

It looked like she'd concussed the poor man. He groaned and tried to sit up, a hand already working itself into the unruly hair. 'Did I Hulk out again?' He begged.

'No, you were hit over the head.' Clint replied as Steve glanced around, looking for the child's escape route. She was not in the room, and he'd already come to the conclusion that she was much cleverer than she let on - so waiting until Clint and Steve were busy and attacking Banner had to serve some sort of purpose.

Where would she go?

'What's going on in here?' Steve and Clint turned to see a furious Natasha standing in the doorway.

And then there was the _other_ problem. Natasha's wrath.

* * *

The ship was huge. Praying Mantis was not going to easily stumble across the hangar bay here. She hadn't seen many people wandering the corridors yet - and those she did see, she was able to avoid.

She was going to steal a plane and find Soldier. She liked Soldier far more than she liked the Widow. At least Soldier respected her. Romanov treated her like… like…. A child .A clueless idiot child. Or a threat. That was why she'd been brought aboard this glorified Harrier. That was why Widow had asked doctors to look at her. The Widow didn't trust her - she didn't need or want her trust. The only person she had trusted was Soldier and he was presumably being chased by their former employers - if employers was the right phrase.

What she needed, she realized, was a map of this place. She couldn't possibly wander around here forever - eventually someone would realize she had taken a bunsen burner and applied the right amount of force to the right part of the skull of the doctor to induce a few seconds of unconsciousness. Not enough to really harm anyone - if only because if she were caught, Mantis wanted at least that in her favour. Always have a back-up plan.

In that spirit - her best likelihood of manipulation if something went wrong would be the tall one who had tried to give her a name.

 _Florence._

She had never had a name before - It sounded so alien to her lips. A name. Weapons did not have names because they weren't real people - that had been drummed into her from an early age. They had designations like Enfield or Colt. Like Winter Soldier - Like Preying Mantis.

There was no protocol for being given a name. Soldier had called Widow Natalia. That sounded like a name - an old name.

Old name or old alias? She knew that she sometimes went by Natasha too.

Having a name was not on the cards. Soldier had been happy to call her Mantis - The Widow had been happy to call her Mantis. But the big one hadn't. He'd wanted a name from her.

Why?

'Couldn't keep hold of you for five minutes - could they?'

Mantis was aware of the voice coming from behind her, but not aware that she had been snuck up on. Whomever had managed to get this close to her was not your average person. Her spacial awareness had been given top marks. To get the drop on her you had to be good.

She turned and looked up into the eyes - eye, the other was covered by a leather patch - of a tall, intimidating man in a black coat. He was flanked by two men in jumpsuits, carrying obscenely large rifles.

He sighed, as though things like Mantis were sent to try him. 'Cleaning up other people's goddamn messes again.' He grumbled.

Could she take out his escort? Could she take out him? Something in her gut that she was loathe to listen to concluded that to even try would be...painful. This was not an ordinary man. He radiated intimidation and command that up until now, she'd only ever experienced from Soldier.

'Welcome to the S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier, Mantis. Yes, I know who you are.' He replied to her quirked eyebrow. 'You are meant to be confined to med-bay. Planning on stealing a jet while I'm not looking? Assuming you can see over the controls. Phonebooks can be provided on request.' He added sarcastically.

So this was Nick Fury. The man that was so well prepared that even her father in a surprise attack hadn't been able to kill him - though, that had been a close run thing. The man was clearly dangerous and cunning.

The staring contest they'd entered into when she'd noticed the eyepatch broke when Fury asked 'Why don't we walk?'

'Where are we going?' She demanded. Really didn't want to go back to med-bay and be poked and prodded while they added more restraints.

'The command deck.' He answered.

He was taking her to the inner sanctum of the ship? The man was clearly planning something. Maybe he was just hoping the increased security would provide him back-up.

'Why?'

'It'll be easier for Rogers to find us when he bothers to tell me about the security breach.' Fury replied matter-of-factly. 'And you'll be wanting the disarming codes you'll find on the jets. Installed those after Deadpool stole one of Stark's.'

Of course they had codes. You wouldn't leave thousand dollar equipment around without protection. Still - she was wary of Fury.

He swept past her, his hands clasped behind his back before turning and asking 'Well?'

Nothing to lose, she supposed.

Mantis followed him.

* * *

A/N: Hello kiddies! I've been prodding this chapter along for _months._ I had to include Fury because - of course Fury and Mantis would get on like a house on fire. Stand back, or you'll end up getting burned. She got her revenge on Bruce for being a doctor _AND_ made Steve and Clint look like idiots to Natasha. Win/win Mantis.

I have more chapters of this planned, but Staken is _moving house_. Which means no internet for a month or so.

Thank you to all the watchers, favouriters and reviewers! You guys make me feel guilty for not updating this more.


	15. Ultimate

A/N: We interrupt your regularly scheduled angst/ridicule with a special update - Patently, I've been watching too much Ultimate Spider-Man. I completely blame this on that show.

* * *

The doors to the Helecarrier's training room opened and Fury swooped inside, followed by Spiderman, White Tiger, Powerman, Nova and Iron Fist.

They hadn't been really briefed on a new training exercise - Peter suspected this had something to do with the fact that the others had been bragging that the training robots had become too easy for them.

Fury had a very nasty sense of humour. He knew.

However, instead of the hundreds of heavily armed robots he'd been expecting ready to do everything but tear them limb from limb - the space was empty, save for one little red-headed girl, drawing with crayons in the centre of the room.

She looked up at their approach and he felt his spidey-senses go into overdrive. Something wasn't right here, but he couldn't pin down exactly what.

'Team, I'd like you to meet Praying Mantis.' Fury introduced. 'Mantis, this is the team I was telling you about.'

'Aw I'm great with kids!' Nova boasted and dropped down to squat and talk to her. 'Hi there! What're you - wait - is that the inside of the hele-'

The paper was hastily shuffled under another pile with a crude picture of Phil Coulson worshipping Captain America. Fury chuckled and pulled it from the pile to inspect it. 'Keeping busy, I see. How are the crayons?'

'I'd prefer pencils.' Mantis replied huffily.

'After you stabbed Johnson through the hand with one, you lost that privilege.' Fury replied.

'He called me "Cupcake".' Mantis growled.

Okay, not your normal little girl. Peter could tell that much - because she was here, on the Helecarrier and making some very creepy remarks - but why was Fury introducing them to her? Did he expect the team to mentor her as he mentored them?

'Mantis here is staying with us while her mother is on top-secret assignment in Slovakia.'

'Awww, you miss your mummy? It's okay to miss your mummy.' Nova murmured.

The little girl twitched and gave the boy a look that should have seared across his helmet.

'What exactly do you want us to do with her, sir?' Tiger asked.

'Entertain her, Ms Ayala.' Fury replied. 'If you can last an entire match with her, then we'll consider upgrading your clearance. If you fail, then Mantis will get her pencils back.'

'What?!' Luke burst out. 'But she's a kid!'

'She's Black Widow's kid.' Fury replied.

All five people turned to look at where the child had been - but now the floorspace was empty. Peter's spidey-senses went into overdrive again - every cell screaming out "this won't end well". He hated the thought that they'd never been wrong yet.

Fury smirked at their faces of disbelief. 'You have five minutes to impress me. Good luck, and Mantis -' He raised his voice slightly to make sure she heard him. 'No flesh wounds.'

That sounded ominous. With a self-satisfied chuckle, Fury walked away. The doors shut and then locked behind him as training commenced.

As one, the group huddled together, looking out around the room. All wary, all on high alert - but seconds ticked by and nothing freakishly abnormal happened. Was she...watching them from somewhere?

'He can't be serious!' Luke burst out. 'Setting a kid on us!'

'He's deadly serious, dude.' Nova replied. 'When is he not? I told you it was a bad idea to ask for an upgraded clearance level!'

'You wanted it as bad as I did!' Tiger hissed. 'It was Powerman that told him training was getting too easy!'

'Hey! It was!' Luke defended. 'I didn't know we'd have to beat up a little kid though.'

'Attacking one as young and innocent as a child?' Danny brooded. 'It does not sit easily within my heart.'

'It's one kid!' Tiger defended 'And we're five well trained SHIELD agents, aren't we? I want that new clearance level!'

There was a giggle from one dark corner of the room that seemed to horrify all five people. Simultaneously, they all tried to huddle closer to each other. Peter looked, but couldn't see anything in the semi-gloom of the empty training room. Oh this was going to end super well. He knew that even without his jangling senses.

'How much trouble could one kid be?' Luke asked after another thirty seconds of nothing happening.

'Plenty.' Peter replied. He'd heard horror stories about Mary-Jane's various babysitting jobs. Kids were complete brats. There was the babysitting job for Mr and Mrs Mason - she'd left the kids at the table with their hotdogs to answer the phone and when she came back - fresco on the wall in mustard and ketchup. Or the Davenport twins who had locked her in the bathroom for an hour. Then there was the time she watched Ms Kernynsky's little "angel" Gino. She'd turned her back for five minutes and he'd shaved the cat. He told his mother that Mary-Jane had dared him to do it. Kids were evil and inventive.

'We're wasting time!' Tiger snapped. 'We've got five minutes to catch this kid.'

'Maybe we should apologise to Fury?' Nova questioned warily.

'If you do not try - then you will assuredly fail.' Danny replied.

That was when the lights suddenly dimmed - just to make it that little bit harder for the group - the training room was now in near darkness. All five of them stiffened up at the sudden loss of vision.

'Aren't kids scared of the dark?' Nova asked after a few seconds of nothing happening.

'I don't think anything scares this kid.' Peter warned.

'Nothing's happened so far.'

That seemed to have settled the group somewhat. They relaxed. 'What's she playing? Hide and seek?' Luke wondered. 'I was always good at hide and seek.'

'Well, we're not going to find her just huddled together like this.'

The five broke apart.

Each person chose to explore an area of the room in front of them. Peter's senses were jangling out of control with every step. He'd told them, hadn't he? Told them Fury didn't take well to boasting.

There was a sound to his left. He whipped around to watch a crayon roll across the floor and into his spandex covered shoe. Oh man, where was she? No kid should be this invisible.

Another crayon clattered to his right and he whipped around, web-shooters at the ready when she landed on him and yanked his mask further down so he couldn't see. Peter yelped as he felt her slide to the floor and then through his legs like a snake rather than a mantis.

The mask was righted just as Tiger and Fist ran into his line of sight. 'What happened?' Ava demanded in outrage as Peter realized what else Mantis had done.

'She stole my webshooters!' He bemoaned and held up his bare gloveless hands.

There was a yell in the gloom from Nova, followed by a crash and the sounds of Powerman in trouble.

'This is not good.' Danny brooded.

'That brat can't possibly know how to use them!' Ava defended. The three suddenly huddled closer to one-another as Nova's empty helmet - sticky with residue, rolled towards them.

'You were saying?'

Ava cursed. Peter would have to have agreed with her - this kid had identified and taken out the powerhouse members of the group within the first two minutes using his shooters. This wasn't a test - this was torture.

He'd tried to warn them.

'Boo!'

Danny whirled around and Peter just managed to glimpse Tiger's surprised face in the glow from his mystical fist as he laid her out - quite accidentally.

There was a giggle from the gloom as Peter backed off from the unconscious Tiger. She was trying to psyche them out - turning the remaining members against each other.

It was working. 'Ava?' He whispered harshly. 'Wakey-wakey kitty! Like right now!'

'I am sorry, Spiderman.' Fist sounded so guilty in the darkness.

He knew it wasn't Danny's fault, she had deliberately done it to make him attack Ava. Not only was this kid smart enough to take out the power houses, she was now using their hyper-alertness to target the other members of the group. Three down and two to go.

'Just stick with me, Danny. Two against one - right?'

Silence from Iron Fist. Was he doing the whole brooding warrior thing or had something more sinister happened to him?

'Fist? Danny this is no time to be working on your smoulder.'

Peter turned, but Danny was no longer behind him. He had to assume that he too had been taken out by this mysterious Mantis. She could give Blade a run for his money. This kid was silent and smart.

Peter backed off until his back registered a wall. Good - his ass was safe at the very least. Now he just had to either wait for the time to expire or-

Click-Clank.

His gloves landed in the semi-gloom near his feet as a childlike drawl asked 'Do you ever keep them stocked up?'

Well...There were a few incidents. He had a lot on his plate! With school, Fury, the team, Fury, Coulson, _Fury_ -

He wasn't sure what made him ask it - but it came tumbling out anyway. 'What are you?'

For the first time, she paused and looked genuinely annoyed with the question. 'I'm the six year old that's going to kick your ass!'

She reared back to throw a punch as his Spidey-senses reached a crescendo - and the lights suddenly came back on. Both of them were blinded for a moment by the sudden brightness but Peter's vision recovered first. Being genetically more like a spider had it's perks.

For the first time he was able to see what Mantis had done to the rest of the team. Power Man was liberally webbed to one wall with his mouth glued shut - struggling still, despite it all - Nova was hanging from the ceiling by his butt - helmet not too far away but unreachable and in any case, it looked like he was unconscious - Tiger was lying on the ground, also out cold thanks to Danny and Danny had been subdued by webbing his fists to his own body in what looked like a webbed straightjacket.

It had to be said - this little demented six year old had trashed them.

Loud clapping was ringing from the opening bulkhead doors as Fury entered the training room, followed by Coulson. 'Well done. You lasted quite a bit longer than what I was expecting.'

Mantis relaxed but didn't turn away from Spiderman just yet. She kept him firmly in her view - too.

Fury glanced from team member to team member as though inspecting her work. His head tipped to Coulson and stage-whispered 'Didn't you bet on the team to win?'

'Yeah, I did.' Coulson looked as stoic as he always did, but Peter knew that he was slightly embarrassed and angry that the team he'd carefully mentored was torn apart by Mantis in five minutes.

'That's a shame.' Fury replied and tossed a shiny packet onto the floor by their feet. It was a packet of pencils. ' _Try_ not to stab anyone with these, Florence. At least - nowhere vital.'

Of that entire sentence, Peter only picked up one word. 'Your name is Florence?' He choke-laughed.

She gut punched him.

He sank to the floor, trying not to hurl as Fury asked Coulson rather casually 'Did you see that, Agent Coulson?'

'See what, sir?'

'My thoughts exactly.'

Should have seen that coming. Stupid Spidey-senses going crazy.


	16. Designation

_Designation_

She swivelled in the chair, watching the platoon of security personnel casually eyeballing her as Fury strutted around his command deck - giving orders.

It was impressive, she would concede that. Glass and brushed steel and so much next-gen technology that even she hadn't been trained in it yet. Once he had seemingly ascertained all was well, Fury turned and walked towards her.

'Doctor Banner is recovering from his concussion in med-bay, no thanks to you. It could have been worse. Doctor Banner has a ….delicate condition.' He remonstrated and folded his hands behind his back as the men assigned to watch her shifted uncomfortably.

She shrugged. Mantis was aware that she hadn't hit the man hard enough to cause permanent injury. He would live.

'You're not remorseful?' He quirked an eyebrow.

'Why should I be?' She replied, perhaps a tad harsher than she had meant it to sound but Fury had so far failed to deliver his promised codes. He seemed to be trying to keep her there.

She stiffened as he leaned down to glare at her with his one good eye. 'Because everyone on this ship is trying to help you.'

'By giving me names?' She snorted.

The glare became a more knowing look as he stood straight. 'Yes, I heard about that. Florence, really?' He shook his head and spoke seemingly to himself. 'I need to talk to Rogers.' His good eye then turned to her. 'Weapons don't have names, do they?'

'No.' She replied.

'You're not a weapon. You're a little girl.'

'I am Praying Mantis.' She retreated, looking for safer ground under that penetrating stare. Not even Soldier managed to look like that.

'You want to find Winter Soldier, huh?' Fury changed tactics.

'Yes?'

He seemed to consider that for some time before he turned to look at her again. 'He left you with your mother for a reason. I imagine he'd be angry if he found out you'd decided to disregard his safeguards and chase him anyway - putting yourself in harm's way.'

'I am trained to do what is necessary to achieve my goals.' She replied - she knew he was poking at the holes in her defense, testing for weakness but couldn't stop the note of venom that crept into her voice.

Fury raised one eyebrow and said 'Really now? Well your goal is to remain under HYDRA's radar. You've been doing a damn poor job of it lately - haven't you?'

* * *

Steve Rogers wasn't exactly hot-footing it down the corridor towards the bridge of the Helecarrier and he absolutely _wasn't_ trying to come up with a good reason why a little six year old girl had managed to outsmart not one, not two - but three people who should have been able to keep an eye on her, especially considering her earlier actions - he hadn't forgotten the beaker the little redhead aimed at his face.

His ears were still ringing from Natasha's scathing rant at finding out that Barton, Rogers and Banner hadn't been able to keep her in line.

'Fury,' He sighed when he pushed through the doors and into the control room. 'There's something I need to-' He paused as Fury turned to look at him and a chair swivelled to follow.

It was the little girl.

'Nice of you to join us, Rogers.' Fury intoned mockingly.

'You found her?' Steve replied, in shock. The girl looked unhappy, but otherwise unharmed.

'I found her just as you lost her. We had a nice talk. I was just about to call you. She belongs in medical, after all.'

Steve stared from the girl to Fury and back again. There was something different about her - chastised almost - but it was clear that Fury wanted her out of his control room and Steve knew for a fact that Natasha wanted her contained as soon as possible.

She was quiet on the walk back, contemplative almost. Steve, for his part, wasn't really sure how to react. Talking to kids wasn't exactly his strong suit if the incident earlier was anything to go by.

'I'm sorry I threw the beaker at you.'

He stopped dead and turned to look back at her. 'Excuse me?'

'I said I was sorry,' She replied slowly - almost sardonically before the snark dropped from her voice. 'It's just… A big change. I trusted Winter Soldier, but I am not sure I trust those that he trusts.'

Steve bit back a retort of _Father._ That man is your father. Not Winter Soldier, he isn't your commanding officer, he's your _dad_ \- considering she was opening up at all was a miracle, he wouldn't push it by insisting on what she called Bucky.

'We're all here to help you, Mantis.' Steve replied far more jovial than he really felt.

The little red-head brooded on that for some time before she murmured 'Florence.'

'What?' Steve was clearly surprised.

'My…' She sighed as though she could not believe she was agreeing to this. 'My designation - alias. I...suppose Florence isn't so bad.'

Steve stared at her for some time before he broke into a huge smile. Whatever Fury had said had clearly made an impact and the slow turnaround just proved really that she was a scared, frightened little girl who - like her mother and father - tried to tough it out on her own.

Maybe they were getting through to her.

Once he'd settled her back in medical - without the restraints this time, he always felt it was just _wrong_ to use force to restrain a child - he noticed the way that Natasha watched her like a hawk. Every twitch and movement was noted, every action carefully monitored.

Steve gently slid over to her and asked 'Have you thought about….what'll happen after?'

She turned and gave him the first look she'd given him since he appeared at the door with Florence. 'It depends.'

'On?' He murmured.

'The results. I still don't trust her.'

'She's just a kid, Nat. A confused, hostile kid. Remind you of anyone?'

'She ….reminds me of me.' She admitted after a beat. Natasha brooded, her arms crossed as she turned to watch the little redhead some more as she rather grittily apologised to Banner for knocking him out for a few seconds. Bruce, his usual self, rather shyly brushed it off as no harm, no foul. They might not be so lucky the next time that someone decided to smack Banner on the head. The shock alone could cause him to Hulk out. Natasha's face softened for a moment as she watched them. 'I'm not good with children.'

'You're great with Clint's kids.'

'Barton's children are normal and easily manipulated. She's only known HYDRA. Different name, same regime.'

'But there's a difference, Nat.' Steve insisted. 'You can give her the childhood you never had. Bucky got to her early. If Bruce's tests come back clear - she'll need a home.'

Black Widow, for the first time that Steve had ever known her, looked terrified at the thought.

'You're her mother, Natasha. Bucky's out doing all he can to keep you two off their dance card.' _I hope_ , Steve added in the privacy of his own head. He did not want his best friend to put himself in danger of being dragged back and used by those psychopaths like he had been for the last seventy years just to keep them busy and away from Natasha and Florence.

'I'll talk to Fury.' Nat nodded. 'If her tests are clear.'

Steve nodded. He understood the emotions battling inside of Natasha right now - she had always wanted children of her own, but it had been stripped from her at a very young age. Now her most hated enemy had seemingly dropped this straight into her lap - years of espionage and double-dealing had taught her to never accept anything at face value.

It would take time to adjust to this latest twist but the twist wasn't about to wait - not when she was a six year old little girl.

Banner interrupted the musings on the future to announce the preliminary results of his tests were in. 'They're all fine.' He smiled at Natasha. 'Paternity, age, DNA sequence is scrambled but I assume that is to do with the fact both you and Mr Barnes have the super soldier serum -' Widow waved him on. 'Bottom line? She's healthy and I can't find any trackers embedded in her anywhere - not even in the blood. She's all yours.'

Natasha looked like she'd been gut-punched. 'All of them?' She demanded, as though she couldn't quite believe it.

Banner nodded.

'Maybe you should take her home?' Steve urged. 'The Helecarrier's no place for a little girl.' Not a little girl that seems to get on _that_ well with Fury, anyway.

'I haven't got -' Natasha began but Clint interrupted her.

'Let me call Laura.' He murmured and pulled out a phone. 'We'll get something together.'

Natasha threw a grateful, slightly exasperated look at Clint before she her eyes towards Mantis again. It was certainly going to be interesting to see Natasha adjust to motherhood - but even below that, Steve Rogers could see that Natasha Romanov wasn't wholly trusting of their newest arrival just yet.

* * *

A/N: This has been sitting in my Google Docs for months. MONTHS. Dammit Mantis why does everything about you have to be so damn hard? I'm not _wholly_ happy with it but considering I managed to find an ending (for this chapter anyway) it's a miracle in itself.

Still riding the WinterWidow train. You can't change my mind - but tune in next time and you may get to see some Mantis and Soldier bonding. *cough*bitching*cough*. She loves him really.


	17. Integration

Integration.

Florence Lilya Romanova-Barnes (alias Preying Mantis) was not your typical six year old girl. For instance - she knew sixteen ways to subdue a person and only ten of those involved killing them. Behind her overly cherubic gaze, she was fast approaching a level of skill that few adults ever possessed. Her mother despaired that she would never have a happy childhood and was slowly attempting to give her one - six year old little girls should not - on the whole - know how to kill their teachers. Florence herself did not want a childhood - she had never had one to begin with.

Despite her protests and tantrums (In some ways, she was still your typical six year old) she was given her marching orders and enrolled within a prestigious all-girls school in New York City.

Her mother had certainly won that battle - but not the war.

'Your face will get stuck that way,' Natasha chided as she drove effortlessly through the crowded streets in the undercover SUV. The radio chattered on with gridlocks, roadworks and unexpected closures in the background and around those were S.H.I.E.L.D reports filtering in.

Florence grumbled from the passenger side, kicking her schoolbag. 'I don't know why I need to be "educated", I have an intellect that surpasses my so called "peers".'

'This isn't about that.' Natasha reminded her. 'It's about you getting to experience everything that other six year olds do.'

Florence huffed and let it drag out as the car's radio filled the silence. Natasha pulled out onto a side-street and towards an impressive pair of wrought iron gates, still in the laden silence. The car was thrown in park and the red-head turned to her passenger. 'Don't break your classmate's fingers today.' She warned.

'She called me a ginger. She deserved it.'

Natasha sighed - Florence couldn't help but notice the fact she looked almost sad as she contemplated that. 'I know.' She said at last. 'Just...try to have fun. Make friends.'

Friends?

'You've been at this school for a few month now, you've never mentioned any friends.' Natasha turned to look at her - still wearing the sad mask.

'I don't need friends.' She replied in a bored voice. 'I don't need _school._ '

From outside of the car, a bell rang. With a long suffering sigh of inevitability, Florence picked up her schoolbag and gave one last glare to Natasha before she popped the door and got out. Kids were streaming left and right for the entrance but she waited, perfectly still, until the black undercover car had driven away.

She didn't even attempt to head towards the doors. Instead, she made her way out of the school and down the road.

Preying Mantis had better things to do than sit and listen to her emotionally overwrought classmates sing the colours of the rainbow and do simple addition. She had training to do. If Natasha wouldn't train her - and her father was out of country doing something insane - then she would train herself.

She'd barely made it three blocks before a familiar black SUV rolled up alongside. The window wound down, giving her a textbook example of her mother's unhappy face. For just a second, she thought about demanding to know how Natasha had known she wasn't learning about "our friend the Owl!" right this minute - when Natasha showed her the app on her phone.

She'd put a tracker on her. And Florence hadn't noticed at all. Where? It couldn't be in the backpack. She could have ditched the backpack at any point. Same with the jacket. The most logical place would then be her shoes. Sneaky.

If Natasha could look any more disappointed, she possibly would have. 'Get in the car, Florence.'

She calculated the likelihood of screaming "stranger danger" going in her favour and concluded that it wouldn't even be worth the attention. Slouching the entire way, she threw the bag into the car and got in.

'Why aren't you at school?' Natasha demanded coolly.

'Why aren't you at work?' She countered with an equally bored face.

'Florence Romanova-Barnes-' Natasha warned in an irritated voice but paused as though contemplating the seriousness of her words next. 'I know this isn't what you wanted -'

'What I've wanted is not something you seem to care about.'

Natasha's eyes narrowed. 'You are just a child-'

'I'm better than every one of those kids! They can't even say the word "amble" without being coached!' The little girl replied. 'I have better things to do than sit there and be dumbed down to the point of suicide by boredom!' She exploded angrily. 'I am what I am - a weapon. An assassin.'

'Really?' Natasha deadpanned.

 _'Yes.'_ She hissed angrily.

'I see.' Natasha mused. 'This is because I refuse to let you get involved with this life, isn't it?'

'I've always been involved.' She returned in irritation. 'It's why I was made. What I was made _for._ '

'You're six.'

'I know what choice I'm making.'

'No,' Natasha sighed. 'You don't.' She sat back against the leather seat and frowned. 'How about we make a deal?'

'A…deal?' Florence sounded hopeful - but suspicious. Her mother almost exclusively never offered deals or bargains of any kind. It was her way or the highway.

'If you agree - the subject of _extra-curricular activities_ may just open up again.'

Florence perked up. Was she finally coming to the decision that normality was one hurdle they couldn't get over? Was she actually agreeing to continue Florence's training under her own supervision?

'What's the catch?' She demanded suspiciously.

'The catch is that you actively attend and participate in school.' Natasha replied. 'They're non-negotiable terms.'

'Average grades and attendance?'

'Yes.'

'And training will resume?' She persisted.

'Yes.' She didn't sound particularly happy about it, but she recognised that forcing the issue would only lead to her hiding what she was doing.

They stared at each other - Mantis willing herself to find one hint of deceit in Natasha's face. Eventually she accepted that Natasha was, perhaps, telling the truth.

'Do we have a deal?'

'Absolutely.'

'You're late for class, then.'

The door was open and Florence was gone in seconds. Natasha sat in the car and waited until her tracker informed her that her daughter was in the school building before she pulled away.

* * *

A/N: I'm not going to pretend that this is any good but someone once suggested what would it be like if Mantis went to school - And this happened. Got a couple more lined up and some lovely reviewers have also chipped in their own ideas, which I'll be working on very soon.


	18. Flying Mantis

It was a long way down.

Mantis was aware of it in the same way someone would note the brightness of the leaves on a tree in the summer sun. It was there, but inconsequential to the journey.

Wind buffeted the skyscraper she was standing on top of, whipping at her bright green suit and the harness she was clipping into.

'You're not throwing her off a building!'

She rolled her eyes and turned to look back towards the shrill, angry voice as a much deeper voice replied 'It's safe.'

'She's going into a combat situation! She's seven!'

Mom and dad were having their bi-annual spat. It was bad timing. Another aloof look over the ledge allowed wind to gust into her face. It toyed with the copper red strands she hadn't been able to tie back.

Natasha was always the more overprotective one.

'She's been trained.' Winter Soldier replied evenly.

'She's _seven!_ ' Natasha repeated in exasperation.

Mantis - she would always think of herself as Praying Mantis when she was on a mission, not Florence Romanova-Barnes; It helped detach herself from the everyday and focus on being the weapon, not the child - risked a look back behind her. Though Soldier had his back to the platform, she could see the tension in his stance. Whenever he and Widow argued, there was tension. He expected her to use physical force at some point and was prepared to counter it.

Widow looked angry and alert - as though she expected Soldier to try to pull something and wanted to see it coming. Mantis understood that when she had agreed to resume training under the agreement that Florence participated fully in civilian life a year ago, that she had never expected Soldier to turn up and want to include her in the incredibly dangerous world they inhabited.

Widow and Soldier had vastly different opinions on what they wanted Mantis to be. Widow wanted her to be a human being - Soldier wanted her to be prepared. It was one of those subjects that could spark all out war at any minute but continually failed to do so. If there was such a thing as love - and Mantis was cynically aware that there may never be something like that for something like her family - then it seemed to be all that stood between them and utter implosion.

'You agreed to put her to training. I want to implement it.'

'I wanted her to train to _protect_ herself!' Natasha countered. 'This is the _complete opposite!_ '

'Protect herself?' Soldier mused.

'You know our reputations. Who we've made enemies of.' Natasha murmured quietly. 'She needs to know how to defend herself.'

Soldier relaxed, all the tension leaked out of him. 'I know.' he replied. 'I want her to defend herself too.' He approached the platform and for a moment, Mantis thought he was going to tell her that the mission had been stepped down. Instead, he took note of her rig and then threw her over the edge with his metal arm.

She heard Widow screaming about how much of a bastard Barnes was. If Mantis had a second to herself, she'd have chuckled as Soldier replied 'What? She'll be _defending_ herself.'

The training took over as she flipped around and planted her heels at a convenient window - crashing through it and into chaos.

Time to do what she did best. Hopefully, she made it back in time to stop the fight that had probably ensued.


	19. The Birthday Party Incident

Birthdays were tricky by Mantis' own definitions. Her HYDRA file said her Project Initiation was February, but her viable conception and recorded growth was May 30th. Memorial Day. Fitting, really. She was brought into being the day that they celebrated fallen heroes. Considering what she was intended to be, it was highly ironic.

Her handlers had never made much of her getting a year older - unless you counted increasing her training regime; sometimes brutally - it was generally ignored. Becoming a year older wasn't celebrated in HYDRA. It wasn't classed as an achievement.

Outside of HYDRA, she was aware of the marked difference. She had witnessed people celebrating the fact they had survived for another year and really saw no need for it.

She had been invited to a classmate's birthday party - presumably because she was still the new kid at school. Amanda Buckman was one of those kids you thought of when you considered the popular kid. Blonde, peppy, athletic. She was regarded as all-american and a young girl that many parents aspired their own children to be like. Florence didn't like her - though she would be loathe to point out exactly why. There was something almost predatory about Amanda Buckman that she recognised in herself - and predators did not like competition. Despite that, Natasha had made it clear that Florence was to attend and participate.

The wrinkle in that plan was that two hours prior to the party commencing, Natasha had been given notice that she was required for an urgent mission - she couldn't refuse. An unexpected ally in her scheme - yes it was a scheme, Florence did not want to go - was Winter Soldier. He had agreed to be her parental chaperone and ensure that Florence did not weasel her way out of it - which was laughable really because of the two - he was the more unstable and he was going to attend a children's birthday party. Perhaps Natasha was testing them - or torturing, torture was always an option.

Winter Soldier had scattered recollections of birthdays - mostly childhood birthdays before the second world war - but he had experience with them. He seemed calm, given the fragmented state of his mind as he told her what parties had been like back then. Even he could not anticipate what the "modern" birthday party truly was and Florence saw no reason to tell him about her brief research.

When they arrived, dress and ribbons rippling in the wind as she stepped from the car - Natasha had completely shut down Florence's low-key shirt and jeans, it was a dress or nothing at all - Florence noted that there was one table entirely devoted to sugar and sweets that the kids were copiously eating from. Hyperactive screeching and mass rioting seemed to be in effect.

Soldier had chosen to attend in a sweatshirt and jeans - the shirt was long, giving him ample room to hide his metal arm - his hair had been tied up and hidden under a cap. He could have passed reasonably well for a normal, everyday parent - if said parent wore three day stubble, a rugged look about him and looked like he worked out frequently. The other adult attendees - all female, Florence noted - were taking great interest in him.

Someone she recalled as Mrs Buckman approached to welcome them and directed Florence to the table of sugar. 'You must be Flora's dad!'

Flora? _Flora?!_ It was _Florence._ She was tempted to say something to the woman but she recognised the look of an elder who had completely written her out of the universe - the woman was focused instead completely on Soldier.

'Is it just you...?' She fished rather tactlessly in Florence's opinion.

'Her mother couldn't make it. Work.' Soldier replied.

'That's too bad, Natasha _is_ a lovely woman Mr…?'

Soldier hesitated for a brief moment. 'Bucky.' He nodded. Behind him, Florence gave a world class eye roll.

'Well Bucky, why don't you come over here with us, let the kids run around for a bit - burn some energy.' She simpered and wrapped her hands around his arm. 'Natasha is a lucky woman, isn't she? You must work out a lot!'

Soldier had just enough time to turn and give Florence a plain look. _Start trouble and there will be hell to pay._ Natasha would probably want a full debriefing when she got back, then. Not that she could possibly start any trouble more loud and crazy than what looked like 20 sugar addled kids running riot.

He looked like he was about to have the same kind of fun that she was going to as he was led away with Mrs Buckman chattering away beside him. He looked like he was listening to every word she was saying but Florence knew that to be a lie. He picked up the odd key word, but mostly had blanked her out. She knew he had because he had the same stance whenever Natasha was ranting at length.

Florence turned her attention to the table of sugar. Sweets of any kind had hardly ever interested her - despite the rampant love of them most kids seemed to have acquired by her age. At HYDRA she was never allowed sweets - never allowed anything you'd consider real food. It was nourishing, no doubt, but bland. By the time she'd broken free, she saw no need for confectionary. It was all too sweet. It made her head ache and the taste lingered.

She snubbed the table and was just about to scout the area when she noticed her classmate coming towards the table. 'You made it!'

'Yes. Happy birthday Amanda.' She added, recognising the social convention and holding out the card.

'Thanks,' Her classmate replied easily as she took it but didn't even bother opening the envelope when she put it next to the pile of gifts. 'You look rockin' by the way.' Florence stared down at her outfit, not entirely sure that what she'd said had been sarcasm. 'I wanted to go princess theme, but mom was like "No way! I'm spending enough money." and dad agreed with her for once. She made me invite the whole class, which is a bummer, but I was gonna invite you anyway!'

She could think of nothing to say to that except that for having a good marriage, Mrs Buckman was being overly friendly with Soldier and that of the entire sentence, the only thing that she would believe Amanda was being nice about was the fact that even with a select guest list, Florence would probably have gotten an invite.

'We're just about to start pass the parcel! Wanna join in?'

'Sure.' Natasha had told her to play nice after all and Bucky had just underlined that fact. He couldn't very well refute her participation in this ridiculous party if she actively included herself in the games now, could she?

Turned out that pass the parcel was rigged. Florence was sure of it. It was rigged so that Amanda or those that seemed closest to her won most of the games. Normally, she wouldn't have cared since toys had never interested her - weaponry on the other hand, that was different - but Amanda had invited most of her class it seemed, all to show off and exclude them as much as possible.

Which, in Florence's opinion was bitchy.

With pass the parcel over with - she couldn't help but consider that it would have been more exciting and educational if the object inside had been a bomb, perhaps - several more people had drifted back to the table of sugar. Others, however, seemed to have had their fill of sweets and instead spent a fruitless few seconds simply chasing each other around until Amanda reappeared with a mesh bag loaded with basketballs.

'Who wants to play dodgeball?!' She was bouncing a basketball with a smirk. All that sugar and excitement meant that most of the girls immediately agreed. Some looked apprehensive, possibly remembering that Amanda was the school's star athlete. The reluctant ones were soon pressured into agreeing to the game.

Florence wasn't worried about losing dodgeball - after all, she was trained to deal with things worse than a heavy rubber ball smacking into her - but that didn't mean she was about to let Amanda get away with bullying her classmates because it was her birthday and she'd been forced to invite them.

She glanced over at the parents tables and noted that Soldier was not paying proper attention to her. He was too busy fielding or fending off Mrs Buckman's prying questions.

Excellent.

She knew what she was about to do would be considered a terrible use of her training and strengths - but Florence really didn't care. Amanda had been making her angry with her petty bullying and snobbery but mostly - thinking Florence would agree with her sentiments. Florence knew power and slavery. She'd been at both ends of the spectrum and while she would always prefer power over being an instrument, using it for something like this was a complete waste.

She watched as Amanda picked the two teams out and to her dark delight, she opted to make Florence the leader of the enemy team before cherrypicking the best sportsmen for herself.

That was fine. Florence didn't need the others. She just needed that one clear shot.

'You ready, Barnes?' Amanda mocked with a smile.

It was Romanova-Barnes and she knew it. 'Any time you are, Amanda.'

The game began and within a few minutes - half her team were gone, but she was focused wholly on the objective. Biding her time for the perfect shot. When it arrived - Florence pounced.

There were no set parameters for this game, it was a free for all and, as such, it had begun to move closer and closer to the tables of food. In the melee of flying balls, Amanda had moved to attack one of her team and had her back to the hated sugar table. Her defenses were down as she celebrated what looked to be a landslide victory.

Florence calculated the ball's trajectory easily and the force needed to knock Amanda back about three steps. It was an instinctive and fleeting set of calculations as she leapt and slammed the ball on the ground. It sprang back up with force and caught Amanda in the face.

The girl stumbled, clutching her nose and mouth, tripped and landed straight onto the table which folded around her instantly.

Soda, cake and bowls of loose sweets went flying as she became caught up in the cloth. The room seemed to have gone pin-quiet before a slow whine erupted from the mess.

Florence knew that the worst thing she could do now was look smug and appropriately schooled her features into bemusement as the adults reacted to the crying and finally began to pay attention to their children.

Soldier was first on the scene, followed by Mrs Buckman who gasped 'Amanda! What on earth happened?!'

'She did it on purpose!' The girl screamed in upset and pointed at Florence.

Eyes turned to look her way, but the mask of bemusement was still holding. 'We were playing dodgeball.' She replied simply. 'I hit her with the ball and…'

'You were playing too close to the tables.' Mrs Buckman concluded. 'Amanda, look at you! Look at your clothes!'

Soldier was coming to a different conclusion, Florence could see it. He knew that this was unlikely to be a mistake or error on her part - she'd done this on purpose.

'She did it! It was her fault!' Amanda all but screamed. ' She ruined my birthday! I hate you, Barnes!'

'Amanda!' her mother scolded and turned to Soldier. 'I am so sorry, clearly the party and all the excitement has gotten to her.'

'Florence?' Soldier demanded.

'I didn't mean to hit you that hard, Amanda.' She replied dutifully but inwardly, she was elated with the look of deep distrust that the blonde wearing chocolate frosting threw her way.

'No you're not!' She retorted. 'I don't want you at my birthday anymore!'

'Amanda!' Mrs Buckman scolded more forcefully. 'Bucky, I'm really sorry for her behaviour-

'

'Perhaps we should leave.' Soldier mused and pinned her with a look. She remained cherubic. Later, she realised that it had been just as much a giveaway as Amanda's bloody nose.

It wasn't until they'd been idle in rush-hour traffic that he turned to her and said 'You know I will have to report to Natalia.'

She played with one of the ribbons on her dress. 'I know.' She sighed dramatically. 'And I'll have to tell her about Mrs Buckman.'

He paused. 'Excuse me?'

She allowed a tight-lipped smirk to grace her lips as she looked up at him. 'What do you think she'll do to you - and Mrs Buckman - when she finds out the woman was flirting with you?'

'She wasn't flirting with me,' He denied grumpily.

'She was trying to.'

'Your mother won't care. She is not, by nature, a jealous person.'

Perhaps. She knew Soldier was. 'She won't trust you with little, impressionable me.' Florence hammered home her point. 'You were too busy flirting with the other attendees to watch me properly and I broke my classmates nose as a result.'

His hands tightened on the wheel until there was the sound of urgent creaking coming from the plastic around his metal arm. He seemed to be contemplating something. 'Your mother does not need to know anything beyond the fact we attended.' He decided with a monotone voice, as though testing that statement for weakness.

'No she does not.' Florence agreed and sat back with a smug grin at last. Class was going to be highly interesting tomorrow. She was looking forward to it really. 'Since we left early, we could do something else,' she suggested.

Soldier threw her a frown. 'That would be rewarding you for what you did.'

'I could always tell her, anyway.' She mused. 'I would be grounded, of course, but I believe most of the blame would lie with you.'

She could almost hear his teeth cracking as his jaw tensed. Finally he grit 'What do you want to do?'

'I want to watch a movie.' She replied.

'Casablanca?' Soldier frowned.

Florence snorted and then looked thoughtful. 'Some of my intellectually inferior classmates were discussing something called _Star Wars_ in the compound.' She mused. 'Can we rent that?'

There was a pause from the driver as Winter Soldier debated whether he was letting Mantis get away with - when all was said and done - blackmail.

'Where's the nearest rental store?' He demanded.

'Two blocks from Widow's apartment.' She answered promptly.

He brooded for a second before he leaned over and began to reprogram the sat-nav. 'Natalia is going to kill me.'

* * *

A/N: Have a 2,500 word incident. There is a reason Mantis is not invited to other kids birthday parties. This is it.

Some of you may recognise the name Amanda Buckman. Let me refresh your memory. The name itself is taken from Addams Family Values. Yes, _that_ preppy little creep. A friend and I were discussing how much Florence would identify with Wednesday Addams and I snuck it in there.

Props to Bucky for not flipping out at a kids birthday party, which may have been somewhat preferable to Natasha if - no - _when_ she finds out about this.


	20. Darth Mantis

A/N: _Nobodythestormcrow_ requested that Mantis give her opinions on Star Wars. I took the Star Wars theme and ran with it. Hilarity will, of course, ensue. Thanks for the request! Hope I did you proud!

* * *

Tony Stark was, when all was said and done, not a family friendly individual. There were numerous examples of his simply stellar behaviour around kids. He was a walking warning to others. Not someone you wanted an impressionable child around.

Or a genetically enhanced child prodigy.

Unfortunately, with Rogers currently out on an assignment with Widow that Fury was heading up, Barton currently taking care of his own family, Banner working on some secretive project, Soldier out of the country - possibly out of his gourd again - and Thor off-world - that left Stark in charge of everyone's favourite diminutive red-head clone.

Normally, he'd delegate the task of looking after kids - especially this kid, this kid scared the shit out of him - to Pepper, but she too had a pressing engagement with the Stark Industries board of directors.

Everyone's created a self-aware maniacal AI out of old alien technology that tried to take over the world at one time or another after all. It was hardly a biggie.

When all else failed - TV was the nation's babysitter, right? What was better than an episode of Mythbusters? JARVIS would watch over her and he could get on with rewiring a new suit and have absolutely no contact unless it was necessary.

Wrong.

Within fifteen minutes of settling down in his workshop with coffee, she peered over his shoulder and said 'How do you compensate for overheating in the boots?'

'SH-CRAP kid!' He jumped, clutching at his heart. 'How did you get in here? JARVIS?!'

'I'm sorry Mr Stark, Ms Romanova-Barnes temporarily left my scanning range. I was attempting to find her before alerting you to the security breach.' The AI replied.

His workshop was meant to be impenetrable. It housed all his mainframes, blueprints and his precious suits. If there was a security oversight, he'd have to plug it. 'How did you get in here?' He demanded.

'Your power cables are bundled into pipes. Too small for an adult but I managed.' She replied.

And they were shielded to prevent heat leakage. Apparently also shielding them from JARVIS' scanners. He was going to do something about that by the end of the month. 'Aren't you supposed to be watching TV?' He frowned.

'Yes,' She wrinkled her nose. 'There's nothing remotely intellectual on there.'

'What do you like watching?' He asked, nonplussed. What kind of kid used the words intellectual? Well….apart from him. He'd been one of those kids, but he had been a natural genius and gifted with an incredible loneliness that he had turned to books and science to fill.

She hesitated for a moment. 'I watched Star Wars last week. It was….enjoyable.'

He raised his eyebrows. 'Okay?' He knew that Rogers hadn't grasped the core of the movies well - not that Tony could blame him, the prequels had made a mess of the plot and weren't as exciting as the original trilogy and most everyone but Banner didn't seem to have a liking for sci-fi movies. Banner professed to like the original trilogy, but Tony knew that he preferred Tolkien to Lucas.

'Can you build me a Death Star?'

He shouldn't have laughed in her face, but honestly - when most kids wanted to be Jedi, Natasha's kid wanted to be Emperor Palpatine. 'I think you're better off asking Fury that one,' He chuckled.

She seemed to consider the logic of this. 'Can you build me a lightsaber, then?'

With the current leaps and bounds of the laser industry, it would be child's play to create a custom laser powerful enough to do some of the things that a lightsaber was capable of. Tony could have done it in his sleep, but he wasn't ever going to sleep around this kid if he could help it.

'Will you leave me alone?'

'Yes.'

'Blue or green?' He asked.

'Red.' She countered.

He could practically hear the Imperial March as Darth Mantis was born.

* * *

'I am not calling you Tony-Wan.' She twirled the lightsaber expertly and Tony had to marvel at how fast the kid had picked up the skill. She'd only burnt herself twice on her own lightsaber, whereas Tony was a walking field first-aid kit.

In the last hour, he'd really gotten comfortable with having Florence around. He wouldn't say he wasn't _totally_ terrified of her - he'd seen what her dear old mom and dad could do, after all - but he'd found a level on which they could, theoretically, bond. Bringing every nerd's fantasy to life.

'Why not?!' He whined.

'It's stupid.' She replied with venom.

'And, Darth Mantis?' He retorted and tried to copy her, which caused him to clip his own elbow and drop his faux-lightsaber on the floor. 'Owww, ow, ow!' He winced. Those things may not have the power to melt through steel just yet - but they hurt like hell in sensitive places.

Maybe he should put a patent on that. Could be a brand new non-lethal weapon. An upgraded taser. Or maybe he'd package it to Star Wars nerds with a warning label. They'd sell like hotcakes.

In the corner, holding the first aid kits, the dummies sniggered. 'I heard that!' Tony yelled. 'Get over here already before I use you two for spare parts!'

His bad tempered bandaging routine was interrupted by a shrill _'TONY! What happened to the living room?!'_

'Pepper's home!' He remarked. 'Act natural!' That was to the dummies who both crashed into each other and then wheeled towards opposite ends of the room, to Florence's amusement. She liked the Dummies.

 _'There are **burns** in the couch!'_ Pepper Potts yelled shrilly as she came down the stairs towards the workshop. 'Tony Stark, I know you're made of money but do you think _I'm_ made of money?! What have you been doing to your house?'

She stopped when she saw the diminutive red-head standing in the testing area. 'Oh hello, Florence.' She smiled.

'Miss Potts.' Florence replied.

'What kind of mischief has Tony been getting you int- is that a lightsaber?!' Pepper baulked.

Florence glanced down at the thing in her hand and then up at Pepper's rapidly widening eyes. 'No. He made me a really powerful laser. And then he said it wasn't cool unless you had two for a laser-duel and made himself one. He emphatically denied it was a lightsaber.'

Pepper's face had first gone white and then seemed to be flooding with pink as she glared daggers at the man who had invented, when all was said and done, a fully functional lightsaber. Call it what you will, it was still a lightsaber.

Despite that, a brittle smile had worked it's way onto her lips and she said in tones too syrupy to be true emotion 'Why don't you put that down for a minute and grab a snack upstairs?'

Florence recognised the look on Potts' face as _"I'm not going to lose my temper until the child is out of the room but so help me god when she's out of the way"_. Natasha often wore the same look when Soldier had screwed up somewhere. It was, Soldier had explained to her once, more like a tactical retreat to heed that look and do as she was told.

She turned off the laser and carefully laid it down on the table before walking off and out of the door. Halfway up the stairs she caught 'Does health and safety mean nothing to you Tony? She's six! If I were Natasha, I'd kill you!'

'Pep, c'mon! You know what I'm like with kids!'

'You _are_ a kid Tony Stark. You never grew up.'

'I'm keeping the lightsabers.'

' _Tony-_ '


	21. Whiteout Redux

[A companion piece to Whiteout. Mantis was not idle in a sense when that plane crashed and Winter Soldier lugged her from one continent to another.]

It was like emerging from sleep, a subtle light and a clearing of senses as Preying Mantis woke.

She was in one of the seats of the plane they'd used to escape the facility and somehow that was wrong. No longer was she in the cockpit of the aircraft, but one of the seats in the back not unlike the ones that she had used as a makeshift bed.

The light was coming from outside, bouncing almost crystal clear off the snow and sending cascades of light into the window - and that too seemed wrong to her. When had they landed? Where was Soldier?

Had he left her here?

She fumbled with the restraints of the seat before she enacted a search of the plane. It was empty, the doors were jammed - possibly by snow, or impact - and she was alone.

Mantis was aware that somehow, this scenario was wrong. Something deep inside was desperate to have her attention but it frustrated her that no matter what she did, she could not find out _what_.

With a huff of irritation, she sank back into the chair she had found herself in and brooded on the situation. Slowly, it dawned on her that if the doors were all buckled or blocked, how had Winter Soldier escaped the confines of the plane? There were no holes ripped into the hull and - bizarrely - she felt warm, despite the freezing temperatures outside. She did not have his immunity to the cold.

'Well done, little one.'

Mantis turned to note that someone - some _thing_ \- else was now sat in the adjoining chair. It was a skeleton in a black robe. Skeletons, on the whole, were not frightening. Mantis understood that they were simply the inner workings of the human body. This one talked. In a rather feminine voice, despite the lack of lips, vocal muscles or indeed lungs.

'Am I dead?' She asked astutely.

The black robed figure turned to look at her fully and she grasped the impression that the skull - without skin, eyes or distinguishable facial features - seemed to be staring and smiling at her. 'Not quite.'

She stared back before saying 'That is rather vague. You _are_ Death, correct?'

'Yes,' She - or possibly more _it_ considered. 'I thought this seemed a good time to chat.'

'Chat?' She echoed hollowly. Why would Death want to chat? Least of all to someone - she was pretty sure, anyway - who wasn't dead?

'You're playing with forces beyond comprehension. You are a child, dearest one - a child in need of guidance.'

'I hardly think you are anyone to judge.' Mantis answered primly but the glare at the smooth, still white bone, increased.

'You have the DNA of two of the greatest assassins in the world in your veins. And a touch of me.' Death answered back.

One little red eyebrow raised. 'A touch of Death?' How dramatic.

'Yes. You remember the scientists used to joke -'

'That an assassin and a weapon always produced death.' She finished with a tone of annoyance. 'It was a rather poorly made equation based on black humour.'

'Was it?' Death wondered. 'Was it really now?'

She did not like where this conversation was headed. 'Where is Winter Soldier? Where is this plane?!'

A skull should not be able to portray disappointment so well, but it did. 'He is fine, little one. As are you.'

The sunlight was increasing - it was almost as if a spotlight had been pushed up against the rounded windows and it was blinding her but she was not going to let Death go that easily. 'I want to know what is happening! Where... _this_ … is!'

The figure of Death finally turned fully towards her despite the light shadowing the skull from Mantis' view and said quite solemnly for a skeleton reaper 'All in your head, little one. All in your head.'

'What do you mean I have a little bit of Death in me?!' She raged. 'It's ridiculous!'

'We shall see.' Death intoned before the brightness took hold of all her senses.

Mantis woke in room that was mostly cream and lit up in shades of sunlight that filtered through the curtains in a way that screamed late afternoon - and completely forgot about her encounter with the strange skeleton in the black robe as reality flooded back and pressing questions needed to be asked.

* * *

A/N: have an indulgence of mine. An assassin and a weapon always produce death. Well, Death took an interest and now Mantis has a second mom (not that she needed the first one, really. It's Mantis.)

One of these days I'll introduce Deadpool into the mix - her reactions to him are sure to be...entertaining. We all know Deadpool is like a drunk step-dad on any given day of the week.


	22. Caller Waiting

[Business as usual in the Romanova-Barnes household. Natasha's juggling, Bucky's mental, and Florence is a mini-teenager.]

'Tell us what you did with the codes.'

'Codes? What codes?'

The slap reverberated around the empty room. Andrei Nikolaev despised striking women - normally. But this one, this one was proving to be an annoyance and a bit of an exception too. She'd taken out several of his agents already in a bid for these codes - stolen in themselves from the Kremlin.

He had heard a lot about her too - this….Black Widow. She didn't look tough. He stepped back and appraised the woman in front of him. Average height, red-headed, pretty. And playing hardball.

'The missile codes you stole from our agent. Please try not to be so carelessly dumb.'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

When his hired help had captured her, she'd had a small hand-gun on her, a pair of gaudy bracelets, a wallet of cash and a phone tucked inside that tight catsuit - he was almost curious about where she stored them. But she did not have the missile codes. Now they'd have to torture the location out of her.

The phone had laid dormant throughout the capture and interrogation - made inaccessible by some kind of password they couldn't immediately crack; now came to life in a series of seemingly shriller tones. Someone really wanted to get into contact with the red-headed intruder in the black catsuit who was even now, trying to look casual as she was tied to the chair.

Touching it brought the screen to life - and the caller ID only listed it as MANTIS below a picture of a very sullen looking girl. A quick glance at their captive and it was clear that the girl in the photo was related. There was no hiding that hair. Daughter or sister, possibly. They looked remarkably alike.

'Can I get that?' Their captive asked boredly.

There was nothing to lose by letting her answer it. She had no idea where they had taken her and the room was filled with large, heavily armed men. It was possible she may even tell them something they had not discovered yet. Like the location of the missing codes. 'We will need the password.' He noted.

'How do I know you won't look through it?' She replied coolly. 'I could have naked selfies on there.'

'You want to answer it, do you not?' Andrei asked evenly.

She rolled her eyes. 'The password is _florencestopstealingmyphone._ '

That raised an eyebrow. 'An unusual password.'

'I have a tech whizz at home.' She bit back. The phone was tucked into the crook of her shoulder and despite the situation, she beamed. 'Hi sweetheart. I'm at the office. I can't talk.'

There was a series of punctuated buzzings and the redhead frowned. 'He did what?'

More buzzing.

'It's a flesh-wound in a non-vital area. It'll heal.' Eyebrows around her were raised. She caught the eye of Nikolaev and rolled hers. Kids, eh? 'He makes a habit of it. I am quite aware of your father's reputation. Yes, that includes as a psychopath.' Her eyes scanned the room, seemingly idle as she replied 'No, I can't teach him manners the Soviets didn't. I'm a little tied up at the moment. I can't drop everything and-'

The interrogators were becoming impatient. Tools were being laid out around them as she talked. Looked like they were not going to be gracious for much longer.

Widow grumbled. 'Can you hold on for just one minute?'

There was a series of angry punctuations as the phone was dropped.

'What do you think you're-!'

'This is amateur at best.' She butted in rudely. 'You didn't even tie my legs down. Bad move.'

As if case in point, one slender foot came up and hit Nikolaev between his legs. He cursed, wheezing and retching as he backed off. The hired muscle were suddenly at a loss at what to do. Some stayed back - waiting for orders - the ones that charged forward to subdue her ended up getting beaten by a woman with both arms tied behind her back.

The phone was still buzzing and twitching on the floor, the voice coming from it was animated as Black Widow back-slammed an opponent into the wall with the chair which gave an ominous splintering sound.

Suddenly, this crazy woman had legs and arms free and the men who had hung back regretted not trying to subdue her earlier.

After that, it took less than thirty seconds for the fight to be over and for Widow to saunter back over to the phone and pick it up as Nikolaev retched, on his hands and knees some feet away. 'I'm back.'

She listened and then sighed. 'We're wrapping up. I'll be on the fastest flight over. It's not even bleeding anymore - yes I know how much of a _piz'da_ your father is. Trust me. You wanted the training, as I recall. I'll be there soon - it's a flesh wound.' She repeated irritably as she ended the call and stuffed the phone into her bra.

Black Widow picked up the bracelets that Nikolaev had found so odd and slid them onto each wrist, stuffed the wallet down the front part of her catsuit to join the phone and grabbed the back of Nikolaev's suit with one hand as the other held a tight grip of the pistol. He resisted until she twisted his arm and forced the pained man to comply.

Being a working mother was a bit of a juggling act - more often than not she ended up juggling with knives.

* * *

A/N: Piz'da is a swear word according to google. I'm not telling you what it is, that's what the internet was invented for.


	23. Naughty? Or Nice?

[Winter Soldier and Mantis recreationally plan to ambush Santa if he tries to break into Widow's house. Natasha thinks it's too cute and ridiculous to stop.]

Natasha Romanoff had never really celebrated Christmas. Never had a reason to - but this year was different. This year she had a family. They were a _highly_ dysfunctional family - but a family nonetheless. She planned on doing all those stupid things an adult with children hates doing, but somehow gets roped into doing anyway. The turkey was defrosting in the sink and the smell of baking was wafting throughout the apartment. Pretty soon, she'd drag Florence away to decorate cookies in an effort to keep her amused and distracted. She'd also planned for the inevitable and purchased a lot of red icing and aprons.

This was their first _real_ Christmas - for all three. Mantis had never even heard of Christmas, or Santa until they'd explained it to her and even then, they'd probably mangled it so badly she only got the general gist of the idea. Bucky had last celebrated Christmas aged 16 or 17 with Steve in the 1940s and Natasha knew what it was - of course - and had been invited to Barton's house on more than one occasion to celebrate with Laura and the kids but had never become too involved in the frivolity. This Christmas Natasha was determined to give her family the full package at least once. She had made it absolutely clear that Florence should have as normal a childhood as they could give her, which meant celebrating Christmas.

She was dusting her hands of flour and walking past the kitchen door when she caught Bucky's voice from the living room. 'We need more tripwires.'

'But the hardware shop is shut.' Florence whined. 'It's Christmas Eve - there's not a whole lot of time.'

She'd asked Bucky to keep her entertained until they were ready but the tripwire comment had caught her off-guard. What exactly were they doing? When Natasha had asked him, she'd had visions of board games and charades but tripwires?

She peeked her head out of the kitchen for the first time in an hour to chaos in her sparsely furnished living room. Wires had been strung from every conceivable point.

'What the hell?!'

Both turned to look at her guilt and surprise on their faces. After spending all morning baking in a hot kitchen, Natasha was seriously questioning whether or not this was worth the explanation - at least until she spotted the firework pointed at the fireplace.

'What,' She demanded coldly. 'Is going on?'

Winter Soldier was, obviously, the chosen sacrifice. 'We're setting a trap for Santa?' He replied warily. Florence nodded her head.

'A trap. For Santa.' Natasha deadpanned as she glanced around and groaned 'I'm not going to have any furniture left at this rate. Whose idea was it?'

'It seems dangerous that people would knowingly allow an intruder into their homes on the premise that he deliver presents.' Florence replied. 'And I have heard that he punishes those who are naughty. There is an awful lot of nasty things that can be hidden in an unassuming box with a bow on it.' She added darkly.

They hadn't explained it properly _at all._

If Natasha had been any kind of normal parent she would have laughed and hugged her daughter and told her not to be so worried about whether she was nice or naughty. However, Natasha was not a normal parent and Florence was not your normal child. 'So you decided ... to set a trap.'

'Yes.' The child replied sullenly.

'And what were you going to do when you'd caught this intruder? Tie him to one of my dining chairs on the roof - _again?_ ' She didn't miss the way Bucky winced. 'I've only got three left.'

'We were going to interrogate him on the nature of naughty and nice - and torture the location of the presents out of him.' Florence replied to another wince from her father.

'I see.' Natasha mused with a blank look on her face. She knew Bucky and Florence both feared that blank look. Neither could read her reactions or, indeed, what she was thinking/plotting when wearing it and not being able to read someone made an assassin nervous. 'Well the cookies are done. Do you want to start decorating?'

'But we haven't finished setting the trap!' Florence whined.

'I'm sure this is more than sufficient.' Natasha replied. 'Get an apron on, please.' She warned as the little red-head sulked past her and into the kitchen. 'Red icing can stain.'

'Natalia - I -' Bucky began in some kind of belated defense.

'I'm not the one who has to slog through all that to put the presents under the tree, James. Without setting it off.' She replied with a brutal little smile.

Bucky's face froze. 'Shit.' He agreed.

She whispered 'Good luck with that.' as she turned back to the kitchen and left him staring forlornly at the mess of wires he'd have to maneuver a whole bag of presents through.

She could sit back with a glass of wine later and watch him attempt Mission Impossible. Who said Christmas wasn't fun?

* * *

A/N: Next Christmas, I may actually put a concluding chapter to this one. But yes, family dysfunction rears it's head again and this time they manage to mangle Christmas. Lets just hope Bucky doesn't eat the mince pie that his loving daughter has laced with sedatives (the thought that Mantis had not done something to the food for Santa and Rudolph is _absurd_. It's absolutely been tampered with) and doesn't set off the firework.

Merry Christmas! See you guys in the new year!

 ** _Guest:_** I'm glad you're enjoying them! Bucky and Natasha getting married would be fun to explore. I'll definitely add it to the new year list!


	24. Traditional

[There are two things that bring people together - weddings and funerals. The Romanova-Barnes wedding somehow manages to blend the two.]

Florence Romanova-Barnes disliked weddings on principle. People spent too much, gestured too much, ate too much and drank too much. The whole traditional aspect of it confused her immensely and the dress code -

The dress code reminded her of strutting peacocks. The more expensive the dress or suit, the more people seemed to have to tell you the cost. There was also some kind of unwritten rule about turning up to a wedding in white. As though you were trying to upstage the bride. Florence had gleaned this and a few other boring things from a horrendous one hour and twenty-five minute episode of _Keeping up with the Kardashians_ that she wasn't ever going to get back.

It was at least an hour to the wedding going ahead and she was bored, wandering around the church.

She disliked weddings. The entire ritual was too rigid - too set. It was not the way the world worked. And yet…

'Awww look at the cute little girl!'

Florence stiffened and turned to look up at a much older woman who seemed to be cooing at her. She was wearing way too much perfume and seemed to be almost weighed down by the huge brooch on her scarf as she bent to talk to her.

'You must love your little dress! So floaty and princessy!' Florence glanced down at her dress and then up at the older woman. She opened her mouth to say something but was immediately cut off by more cooing. 'Are your mummy and daddy getting married? You must be so excited!'

Excited? Hardly. They were doing paperwork before the big event. She didn't see the point in the ridiculous pageantry of getting married. She did understand the legal ramifications, of course. Florence was pretty sure that the only reason that Bucky and Natasha were getting married was to do with her; if either of them died it would be so much easier to gain assets and custody - but maybe that was her narcissism on show.

It wasn't as if they were even getting married under their own names - that would be too risky. Especially considering both had been born before 1950. They aged well.

Florence's eye was drawn magnetically to a leather strap that caught her eye as the shawl fell open in the old woman's attempts to bend down and grandmother someone else's child. It seemed wrong in crazy-old-lady's outfit. It was out of place in the crisp white shirt, nana-scarf and shawl. Why would an old lady need leather? To keep her girdle up? Fetishist?

No. Concealed-carry.

Seemed odd for an old church biddie. For her own protection? Or Mr Mittens? Either way, Florence was suspicious but unwilling to call her out on it - and there were ways. Starting with "You do have a strange bra mrs old lady - it's leather!" and ending with "Mom and dad are also buying concealed carry permits grandma, are you getting one too?" Loudly, with much child-like gusto - but that would draw unwanted attention to the situation in a way that would make it hard to predict the old woman's moves.

Maybe she should consult someone about this.

Uncle Steve wasn't here, neither were Uncle Tony or Uncle Clint. They were due to arrive in half an hour for final preparations. No super-spy, genius, or patriot to rely on right now. Where were mom and dad? Still wrestling with the formal attire?

'I need the toilet!' She announced with her best "I'm a kid, I can be rude if I want" voice before turning on her heel and walking away. A skip would be too nonchalant, a march would draw attention to a businesslike nature. So walking sedately seemed the best option.

The back church rooms smelled odd and had a looked after sense of shabby. Natasha - mom - was getting ready in one of these rooms, piled high with bibles and other assorted paraphernalia of organized religion. Her white dress was simple - but that somehow enhanced, rather than detracted from her form. Mom could and would look good in anything. Even clothes that could have looked like they belonged to someone homeless. She spotted her as she stared into the mirror to attach her earrings. 'There you are.' She commented. 'I hope you haven't been getting your dress filthy -'

'There's been a possible perimeter breach.' Florence warned.

Natasha paused, but Florence knew her mother. She would take her daughter's warning seriously. 'Tell me.'

'Old woman, dressed like a churchgoer. Has a concealed carry.' Florence answered promptly. 'Not sure of make and model but she has one. That or a serious leather fetish.'

Natasha frowned into the mirror - probably running the same variables that she herself had run. 'Just one?' Obviously this was not a surprise to her.

'One identified.' She answered. 'I need instruction. I'm sure I can eliminate her quietly but chances are that she isn't alone and taking her out would alert her coworkers.'

'Go and tell your father.' Natasha decided.

Florence nodded and moved across the hallway to her father's designated room. This one held benches of various descriptions of broken that the church seemed unwilling to throw away - if only for spare parts use later. He was in a pinstripe suit and was adjusting his tie with preoccupation. To avoid suspicion in regards to his metal arm, he'd chosen to wear black gloves for the occasion. He paused and frowned when the little redhead entered the room. 'Florence what are you-'

'There's a possible perimeter breach. I've been instructed to inform you.' She announced.

Like Natasha before, Bucky frowned but accepted the judgement of his young girl. 'Tell me.'

'Old woman with a concealed carry. Passing herself off as a church associate. Unknown make or model of weapon.'

Dad seemed to chew on that for a while before he reached down for the bag he'd brought some essentials in. He straightened up as he screwed a silencer onto the pistol in his hand. 'They never give up.'

'Who?' Florence asked. Patently, her father had some idea of who was playing the great game of silly buggers this time but she herself was clueless as to who. They had a lot of enemies - and she knew when she said a lot - she could write a list as long as her father's arm.

'I'm going to bet this is the Soviets. It smells like the Soviets and the Red Room.' He grunted. 'Take this to your mother.' He handed her the newly silenced pistol and began to dig around in the bag some more.

Florence stood there with the gun, peering around him. 'How much weaponry did you pack in there?' She asked quizzically.

'Not as much as I wanted.' Winter Soldier huffed. 'Your mother made me leave behind the grenades in case they detonated on my suit.'

She accepted that little bit of wisdom and walked across the hall again.

'He brought the pistols with silencers? Ugh.' Natasha bemoaned. 'Of course he brought the pistols with silencers.' She grumbled as she took the weapon from the small flower girl.

'He was upset you didn't let him bring the grenades.' Florence added as she handed it off.

'Why did I agree to marry that idiot?' Natasha murmured as she checked the chambered round.

'Because the idiot had the forethought to bring weaponry to a wedding. His wedding.'

'Good point.' Natasha agreed and swept out of the room.

She met her husband to be in the hallway with his own pistol. He handed Florence a weapon as well and remarked 'Isn't it bad luck to see the bride before the actual wedding?' With an easy, smug half-grin. 'You look beautiful, sokrovishche.'

Natasha snorted. 'You're loving this, aren't you?' She commented.

'Maybe, just a little.' He replied with a laugh before it fell. 'Soviets?'

'Does it matter?' Natasha commented. 'They're here to kill us, obviously. I hardly think we should bother finding out whom it is this time.'

Bucky nodded. 'There will most probably be someone in the belfry with a sniper rifle.' He mused, obviously thinking ahead to the enemy's tactics.

'I'm not going up there in this dress.' Natasha warned. 'It's white.'

'This suit is too restricting in a confined space.' He pointed out.

Both of them turned to look at Florence, who had busied herself checking her gun and clip. 'I'll relieve the sniper of his post.' She said quietly.

'Good.' Natasha agreed, as though sending her little girl up a perilously long way to assassinate a man with a sniper rifle and steal it for their own gains was normal - to the Romanova-Barnes family it practically was. This was their life. 'Assuming Florence is as right about the old woman as you are of the Soviet connection, there will be no more than three assassins walking the floor.' Which made practical and tactical sense to Florence. One to watch the other two and few people to get in each others way. The fact that they had not come in guns blazing and seemed to be trying to conceal their identities meant that this was meant to be a quietly planned assassination. The old biddy was one, but that meant the other two were unknowns. Everyone in this quiet parish church was going to have to be heavily scrutinized as a possible hostile.

'This is not how I expected my wedding day to go.' Natasha sighed.

'Really?' Bucky asked in surprise. 'I had a suspicion that it would from the moment I asked you to marry me.'

'A hope, more like it.' Natasha bit back playfully.

He chuckled lowly. 'I'll try not to get blood on such a beautiful dress.'

'If you do, the next streak of blood on there will be your own James Barnes.' Natasha warned him.

With that, the three split up. Mantis took the Belfry, Widow chose the upper floors and balconies overlooking the church alter and Soldier began to walk the floor in search of biddy and her cohorts.

Florence had always assumed that weddings were boring little affairs of formality, but her parents own wedding was proving to be interesting. Maybe it was true they weren't all the same frivolously expensive pageants that she had thought they were - or maybe it was just their family. Either way, she was no longer dreading the process.

* * *

A/N: I find this one particularly ironic to write as I am currently planning my own wedding! (Promise it won't be this bad - unless alcohol is involved somewhere.) Which explains what I've been doing for the past month. I've also been drawn into another one of my projects and started a new hobby. Busy year so far! A guest gave me the prompt of Natasha and Bucky getting married, Florence as the flower girl and russian assassins. What's a wedding without assassins? Anyway, Guest, I hope you enjoy it!


	25. Traditional: Part 2

**Part 2:**

The church had an atypical layout. It was _modern_. The belfry wasn't on the outermost edge of the structure like the older churches - it came out of the structure like a chimney out of a house. Just bigger and slightly taller. The whole open-plan space was surrounded by moss-laden tiles from the building below which - Florence guessed - made the whole thing easier to maintain, really. She'd noticed that first upon arriving and now factored her earlier - and unforgivably lazy, why hadn't she paid more attention? - assessment of the building into her mental map of the place.

The stairs leading up to the belfry were covered in a fine layer of dust - hardly anyone seemed prone to coming up here to check on the bells. The ringers were stationed in a room at the bottom, as far from the deafening bangs as you could get - but someone had been by here. Footprints in the dust attested to a recent visitor.

Florence could have judged a lot about their possible sniper from his footprints if they'd been in something impressionable like snow or mud - deep footprints with well defined treads could indicate the load he was carrying en route to his kill-zone and the size of the rifle itself but dust was not, on the whole, an ideal impression in which to glean that kind of information. What she did learn was that these tracks had very little defined impression in the dust - formal shoes, perhaps. Well tailored and definitely not something that could be bought off a shelf. She did like it when they got into the spirit of the disguise.

The stairs were old and, on that basis, would probably squeak. Squeaking stairs would give away any attempt to sneak up on her adversary. With that in mind, she bent down and unclipped her very special, sparkly shoes and stepped out of them. Her socks immediately picked up a lot of dust but Florence needed all the dexterity she could get.

A foot gently eased onto the first stair where, presumably, a joist lay under the varnished wood. It was the least likely point of contact to cause a give away. Nothing sounded. Good. She ascended to the next stair and the next with equally silent acrobatics; alighting from one joist to another as the stairs curved upwards.

He was laid out on a mat with the rifle - a cloth positioned in front of him and ready to catch shells. Not your usual dumb idiot, then. He hadn't heard her stair-climb, nor did he hear her silently approach.

If this were Uncle Steve, or Uncle Tony - they'd have alerted him to their presence by telling him it was a good idea if he surrendered before he got deeper into trouble - which would include a beating before arrest. They would see it as only fair. However - Florence was not Uncle Steve or Uncle Tony. If she attempted the "sweet and innocent little girl" routine here, he would probably have no qualms about shooting her, adorable as she was. She may have been technically trained better at six years old than this man who was obviously four or five times her age but her height and weight were still something to factor in. He could throw her around like a ragdoll and if given the chance, there would be little Florence could do to stop him.

Sometimes, being a diminutive, low-grade genius assassin sucked. You saw the negative in everything because the consequences were usually magnified when compared with size. If this were mom, he may get a good few knocks in, but she was light on her feet and could give as good as she got. If this were dad they'd be forever locked in a wrestling match - unable to move each other. This was Florence and she could and had been picked up in the past and flung around. It hurt her pride almost as much as it just plain hurt.

She wasn't about to announce her intent and give him a chance to react, that was for damn sure. The pistol came up and she aimed at the back of his head. The safety eased off and with one steady breath out, she squeezed the trigger - which was, perhaps the only way that he could have known she was there. Certainly she'd not given any other clue to her presence - she was sure of it. He must have reacted on instinct - he had no time to seriously calculate the odds that one breath meant that someone was behind him, preparing to shoot.

The bullet hit the gun at the exact angle his head would have been had he not jolted right at speed. The sound rolled around the confined space - silencers were good at muffling the sound of a bullet, but not completely capable of hiding it.

She cursed inwardly and in Russian - mostly because whenever dad was angry or upset or just plain irritable, he tended to slip back into Russian and the words tended to stick. You didn't need a dictionary to understand a lot of the meanings.

In that second of inventive cursing, her target had pulled a knife from somewhere on his person and whirled around with purpose.

Whatever her shortcomings - short being the operative word, here - in combat being small and lithe did have it's advantages when it came down to dodging. Being small meant being less of a target and a lot harder to hit. She swayed out of the way and brought the gun back up, but it was knocked from her hands with a reactive kick and promptly bounced into the corner of the room. She'd never have time to turn and grab it before a knife wound up in her back.

 _'Derr'mo!'_ She hissed to herself and turned back just in time for their would-be sniper to grab her and snarl in reply _'Malen'kiy ublyudok!'_ as he threw her the length of the small room. She impacted with the windowsill and hissed as her kidneys protested violently.

Oh he was going down. One way or another. Nobody called her a _little bastard_ and lived - even if it was technically true.

Her vision had finally settled as the pain subsided and it was just in time for her to see him lash out towards her - there was nowhere to go. Nowhere but out.

This situation was well and truly screwed up and out of her control. Mom would be sarcastic, she may even be acerbic about it when she heard the story. Florence should know better than to get caught in this kind of situation.

Mantis tumbled out of the window and rolled slightly before she managed to get a grip on the tiles. It was made all the harder in just socks. Socks, on the whole, did not have gripability that shoes would have provided. Even the horrendously sparkly ones she'd left at the bottom of the stairs.

Her new nemesis was at the window in seconds but it gave her time to slide up and around the side of the opening to use the overhang of the large, gothic sill to hide her from him as he checked all around.

It took a few gulps to control her breathing and another curse let loose in her head as she spotted the moss stains, dirt and dust marks now racing up her dress. It had been white, once upon a time.

Widow was going to kill her - figuratively of course. Against all sane judgement and contrary to several examples as to why she shouldn't - Natasha seemed to love her. And her father too - although his list of crimes against common sense and/or social convention far outstripped Florence's own.

Still, this was not an ideal situation to find one's self in. She shifted, peeping up over the lip of the window. The sniper had retreated to his fallen gun and was trying to repair the damage. A few steps away was her silenced gun.

She was never going to be able to get to the gun while he held that rifle. If it was still working - despite Florence shooting at it - then she'd hardly have time to get over the sill before she had a serious problem. If it wasn't functional, that still meant that she would be in range of the knife she knew him to have on his person. The belfry was not that big.

The tiles were chilly on her legs. It had been cold overnight and the weather was still crisp. Curse Natasha's spring wedding idea. Her leg brushed up against something else on the roof - It was a bird's nest. In it, were two eggs.

An idea began to form. It was hardly a pleasant idea for the pigeons no doubt using that nest but it would distract the sniper long enough for Florence to get to her gun. She grabbed the eggs.

The first splattered across his chin and mouth, causing him to stumble back and curse. The second impacted directly on his nose and eyes, throwing eggshell and yolk into them. Blinded now, she had the perfect opportunity to scrabble over the windowsill and roll towards her gun as he scraped at his face.

The first shot went into his knee and he collapsed heavily. The next one went into his head as he tried to rear up and grab at his pained leg.

Just like that, he was dead. All that effort for a second's worth of shots. It was a poorly executed assassination. She stood, breathing heavily and watching the body bleed before she glanced down at her scruffy attire.

Natasha was definitely going to kill her.

With the sniper taken care of, she took pains to grab his rifle and steal several key pieces of it's mechanics along with the bullets. If - on the very slim chance - someone did decide to come up here and try to use the gun, they would find several ways that they could not.

Florence glanced out of the window as light bounced from something close by. A car was pulling into the drive. As soon as it stopped, a familiar figure stepped out. Uncle Steve. Was the sniper here to take out the guests as his cohorts tried to kill mom and dad? At least Doctor Banner wasn't here, yet. It would have been a disaster of epic proportions if he had been shot - or shot at. Florence did not like the big green guy. He was...temperamental. And didn't fit easily in doorways.

With that in mind, she began the long trek back down the stairs and back into the church.

Mom and dad must've taken care of the threats, since neither uncle Steve, nor uncle Tony or uncle Clint noticed anything amiss and were standing beside mom, dad and the vicar listening to a fast rundown of how the wedding was going to go as a reminder - especially since at the rehearsal, uncle Tony had been drunk off his ass. Again.

'And once the rings are exchanged-' The vicar paused upon seeing her and chuckled half-heartedly. 'Oh dear. Have you been playing in the field?'

All eyes swung to Florence, standing there in muddy socks, clutching her shoes in one hand and trying to brush more and more dirt and moss off her filthy dress with the other.

If stunned silence had a sound, it would be a long, drawn out note on a violin.

Clearly, mom and dad had not told uncle Steve, uncle Tony or uncle Clint about the security problem, because they looked surprised to say the least.

Mom, however, had frozen, her face blank. That was bad - she only ever went blank when she was experiencing emotion she had no desire to show. The priest must have sensed the unshown rage as he coughed and said 'Well, I'm sure with a good brush, most of it will come out.'

'A hose might be a better idea.' Uncle Tony chuckled.

Natasha glared at him and uncle Tony had the decency and self-preservation enough to shut his mouth. They would talk about this little screw-up later - she was sure. But for now -

'Shall we all get ready?' The vicar smiled, completely oblivious.

Yes, please. Before more assassins arrive and preferably before mom lost her temper. Florence was forced to revise her opinion on weddings once again.

They were far too much trouble to be worth anything.

* * *

 **Bonus round!**

Sam Wilson stared at the little girl across the room with something approaching fascinated suspicion.

Steve was caring for her while his friends were out on their honeymoon. Sam had a sneaking suspicion they weren't the type for normal honeymoons.

Steve had alluded that this little girl was not your typical kid under ten. He hadn't initially believed him at first because he had nieces around the same age and, yes, they were a handful but they weren't so bad.

The little child - Florence, her name was Florence after all and Steve had advised him under no circumstances should he try to shorten her name to _Flo_ or _Flora_ \- was half-engrossed by whatever was on her tablet. She was also watching him. She didn't seem so different to any other school-age kid he knew, which puzzled Sam immensely since Steve had made it very clear that Florence was not to go on the internet, she was not to go into the kitchen and she was definitely not allowed to watch any more _Dr G Medical Examiner_ on tv. It seemed an odd set of rules to him.

It was awkward in the living room with just the two of them. Steve had disappeared for a beer run before they watched the baseball game. Florence seemed disinterested in it. He coughed. 'Where are your parents vacationing, Florence?'

She glanced up at him for a brief second but soon returned to the tablet. 'Cuba.'

'That's nice. Cuba has a wonderful heritage.' Sam replied with a smile.

'They're probably going to assassinate somebody and have a lot of sex.' Florence retorted boredly. 'Hardly a change.'

Sam spluttered in shock. 'Wh- how -'

She gave him a pointed look. 'Sex education gets taught to five year olds you know. When a mommy and a daddy love each other _very much-_ ' She began sarcastically.

'Yeah, yeah. I get that. Are you not afraid of getting a little brother or sister?' He questioned carefully.

She gave him a scathing look from over the top of her tablet computer. 'My mother is infertile. I was grown in a lab. They can have all the sex they want but I won't get a sibling any time soon.'

Okay. Now Sam was starting to get an idea of why Steve had left such an odd list of rules. She was an odd little girl. When was he coming back again? Sam Wilson suddenly felt a lot less safe than he did before talking to the little redhead from over the top of her tablet.

There was a happy little trill from the computer in her hands and suddenly the TV channel - which had been locked on the sports, ready for the game - changed to _Dr G Medical Examiner._

'What did you do?' Sam questioned carefully as Florence gave a laugh of triumph. The laugh quickly turned to shouting as the tablet and TV displayed the unhappy face of Nick Fury.

'Mantis!' It boomed angrily. 'I'm gonna go ahead and assume you tried to hack something you shouldn't have.' Fury's angry face got right up close to the camera and he hissed 'This is a pre-recorded warning. Don't make me come down there _myself._ '

The TV and tablet shut down which caused Florence to fling it away unhappily in a huff.

'What was that?' Sam demanded. 'What did you _do?!_ '

'Uncle Steve is devious.' She muttered petulantly. 'He put S.H.I.E.L.D level encryptions on his network!'

Where was Steve with that beer?!

* * *

A/N: We have a second part to the wedding! Mantis gets a lesson in why simple tasks are never simple. It's a good job Natasha loves her dearly, otherwise they'd never find Florence's body. At least Bucky didn't stain her dress? Have some bonus after wedding content too featuring everyone's favourite Falcon! Because I've had computer breakdowns and writers block all over these last few months. I'm two months late!

As for the bonus content: I took inspiration from _Addams Family Values_ again. The _"They had sex."_ line from Wednesday, specifically. And a cameo in the bonus material from everyone's favourite grumpy man! Fury is probably the only one who could ever get any real and grudging respect from Florence. Don't mess with a man who survived an ambush from Winter Soldier. Just don't. That man makes doomsday preppers look _sane -_ And uncle Steve is devious, very devious.


	26. Intruders

[Hydra agents Kessler and Donner have a fatal encounter with the family of assassins.]

Alaskan tundra - 1400hrs local time.

Monitor duty was boring, but considering it was in the warm where you sat on your ass and ordered other people about all day it was a highly coveted assignment.

It was a _good_ assignment. The base was too far out into the icy tundra to really be stumbled on by accident and the many, many cameras scattered around the corridors and research labs made it easy to keep tabs on the comings and goings of the regular staff as well as security.

HYDRA were beyond paranoid about keeping their research secret and protected after all and who could blame them? Donner and Kessler had watched some projects being assembled during one or two of their monitor room stints. Futuristic weapons, clones - one gruesome experiment to recreate the Iron Man suit.

Kessler and Donner had essentially won the base-wide lottery in landing Monitor Duty and, as such, were currently lording it over the others - telling them where to go, to move their ass - to check out "suspicious" packages in the trash which, inevitably, would be last month's rotten and decayed cafeteria lunch - badly wrapped and disposed of. The trick was cruel to their comrades but was still nevertheless hilarious to the two men sitting in control and eating junk-food as their colleagues retched and cursed them out.

Not technically regulation and definitely something that should not have been there was a small, portable television perched on the desk beside the monitors. It was playing American football.

Kessler and Donner were almost completely focused on that or on the monitors but occasionally one of them would turn around to stare at the vent across the small, cramped room as sounds emanated from it.

'Damn rats.' Donner growled. 'They're in the vents again.'

Kessler rolled his eyes. 'What're you going to do, shoot them? They've already laid poison.' He grunted and turned back to the game just in time to see a fumbled pass. 'Goddamn what are those boys playing at?'

Donner tutted at the shameful display himself before he turned to the monitors. Everything looked normal. He settled back with a bag of Cheetos and grumbled at the occasional noise that came from the vent.

Was it his imagination, or did the noises seem to be getting….louder?

'Damn, those are some big rats.' Kessler muttered but wasn't taking his eyes off the game.

'I don't get how they can live here, I can barely live here.' Donner groaned and attempted to pull his regulation parka up just a little bit further. HYDRA had pumped a lot of money into this facility and on the temperature control for their experiments but the same niceties had not been extended to the security staff - they had to suffer. It didn't help that the portable heater had broken last week, either. At least HYDRA paid well. Very well, for the right skill sets.

The two men became engrossed in the portable tv and tried to ignore the noises coming from the vent. They hardly noticed when the security cameras - one after another - fizzled for a second and then righted themselves.

'Security check in team one.'

'Check in two.'

'Check in four.'

Kessler groaned and grabbed his radio. 'Team three, you missed check in. You're not still barfing into the snow, are you?' Silence. 'Check in assholes or you'll be on trash duty for a month!'

Nothing. Donner looked up from the tv as Kessler swore and began to look through the many security cameras for team three's location. 'They're probably still pissed about seeing the wrong side of Tuesday's meatloaf.'

'The cameras aren't responding.' Kessler frowned. 'I can't pan or zoom.'

Donner cursed the interruption to his football game and slid his chair over. 'You've probably still got them stuck on fixed or they've frozen in place again.'

'All of them?' Kessler demanded.

'What - even the ones in the nooks?' Donner frowned. The outer cameras had been known to short from time to time in the immense cold, or end up getting frozen over completely but several were under things that should have protected them from the worst of the weather.

'All of them!' Kessler hissed. The sounds from the vent were back with vengeance. The noise rattled the cover across the room. Kessler threw up his hands. 'That's all we need.'

'Sounds like they're doing maintenance on the vents. Could be the reason the cameras are down.' Donner hazarded. 'Wouldn't be the first time they've cut the wrong wires.'

'Useless idiots in construction.' Kessler mused, turning over the statement. That wouldn't make this glitch their problem and anything that wasn't security's problem would mean they couldn't be held accountable - Right? Nevertheless he frowned. 'Did you hear anything about maintenance in this morning's briefing?'

That was the point in which the cover for the vent was thrown off, impacting the monitors with enough force to smash at least a half-dozen and something much bigger than a rat launched out of the wall.

Before Donner had a chance to get to his weapon, the little red and green blur was up on his back with a piece of cable wrapped around his neck. He was turning purple as she hauled on the garrotte.

'Donner - _damn_ man - stay still!' Kessler demanded, pistol in hand - but his partner was not listening and was flailing, trying to throw his attacker off.

Kessler glimpsed a pale little face surrounded by thick ginger hair. Judging by the length - a little girl. She was smaller than them by at least half - but was also strong for her size. Enough to keep herself on Donner's back and keep the garotte taut as he fought for breath.

Kessler had no choice. He couldn't let the girl continue to try to kill a grown six foot man. He fired, aiming for her but hoping that the shot would be enough for her to disengage. It missed and impacted the wall behind her. She flinched away from the bullet's trajectory but kept on the pressure.

Donner was going white now. Pale and sluggish.

Kessler shot again and this one sank into Donner's shoulder as he moved. The little girl's arm snaked down and managed to pull Donner's gun out of it's holster while the other maintained a good grip on the garotte - god, how strong _was_ she?!

'Shit, shit, shit!' Kessler snarled and fired again, but this one pinged harmlessly on the wall again as Donner slumped to the floor, his lips blue and his eyes a bulging red.

The gun came up under the man's armpit and fired. The shot hit Kessler square in the kevlar vest and threw him back with all the air driven from his lungs.

He lost his gun in the fall but scrabbled across the floor to get to it as the intruder put one round in the back of Donner's head. She was marching across the room and pistol-whipped him hard. He was pretty sure he'd blacked out for a few minutes.

When he came to, she was sitting in one of their chairs, monitoring the feed and eating Donner's chips.

On the inner monitors, two other people were swiftly moving down the corridors, a man and a woman.

'I haven't been here in over two years!' The little girl was seemingly arguing with herself. Was that what had dragged him back into consciousness? 'I'm trying to find the right project location but this is a security terminal!'

They were looking for something. What were they looking for?

There was a beat of silence. 'I don't know where my uncorrupted files are! They could have been scrapped - destroyed! They could be in storage somewhere else. This is where I was made, there has to be _something_ here!'

The little girl was swiftly moving through the computer's files, reading a few lines of documents before discarding them. Kessler reached up and pressed a panic alarm on his radio which triggered an alarm throughout the upper portion of the facility.

The little assassin whirled around on him and snarled, cheeto dust clinging to one side of her mouth. ' _B'lyad'!_ Should've hit you harder.'

'Hail Hy-' He began as she pulled Donner's gun from her jacket and shot him - this time in a place without kevlar.

'We've got a problem.' She growled as Kessler bled out on the floor. 'They know we're here.' She listened for a moment before she picked up the bag of cheetos and spun the chair around. 'Understood. Rendezvous in five minutes.'

She left him bleeding out heavily - left him to die - staring at Donner's blue and purple face.

What was she? _What were_ _they?!_

* * *

A/N: Request chapter! _Nobodythestormcrow_ requested an enemy POV of everyone's favourite assassin family. I love doing request chapters. This one was a challenge - I'll admit. I hope I did the prompt justice!


	27. Jones part 1

**Part 1 - Hangover**

The door was broken - again. Nothing she could really do about that. The reputable tradesmen wouldn't touch her - or her alcoholic temper - with a ten foot barge pole. The unscrupulous tradesmen would charge her a fortune she'd rather spend on whiskey. So the door stayed slightly wonky and you had to slam it to get it to stay shut. At least this time the glasswork bearing her name was still intact.

Better than last month, anyway.

She was roused by a knock on the door. Her face unstuck from the desk strewn with files and she grimaced as the hangover headache kicked in. What time was it? She glanced out the torn vertical blinds. As someone who woke up and worked at all hours of the day/night she'd guess it was somewhere around mid-afternoon. She'd missed breakfast and lunch - may as well start dinner.

A hand pulled open a drawer in the desk and rooted around the bottles kept there until she found one that didn't seem so empty. She put that on the desk before she stood and made her way to the door.

Halfway through another knock, she opened it.

Outside her door - admiring the various scuff-marks and dents in the wall (door, again) - was a girl that had to be no older than fourteen. Around Jessica's age when she was orphaned, anyway. Unlike Jessica, this girl's hair was the brightest shade of red she'd ever seen. She was in a plaid school uniform that Jessica recognised as one from upstate New York. She was clutching a backpack.

'Jessica Jones?' The girl frowned. 'Alias Investigations?'

Oh great. A kid who wanted her to follow her boyfriend, probably.

'Yeah?' Jessica leaned against the doorway as another bout of headaches hit. The girl walked straight past her and into the office and while Jessica could have stopped her - manhandling a preppy little kid would not do her reputation any favours - especially if the preppy little kid wanted to be a client.

'Do you always have a hangover?' The girl asked quietly.

'I do my job. Which, I assume, is why you're here?' She turned and closed the door, hard. Hard enough for the glass inside it to shatter and tinkle to the floor. 'Shit.' She hissed under her breath as the cacophony of sound irritated her hangover.

'Surprisingly, yes.' The girl replied and unslung her backpack.

'I don't usually take jobs from minors, so I want paying upfront.' Jessica warned, hoping really that this would deter the girl from wanting her services. Most minors could not even afford the basic private investigator package and she definitely didn't do installments or commission - at least, not for minors.

A wad of cash hit the desk first. 'Is that enough?' The red-headed little girl drawled. It was a big wad. A substantial amount of cash for a teeny little teenager to be toting around - okay Jessica, get a grip and stop alliterating everything. This was either a very big operation or she wanted something done - fast. Or it could be a set-up. The last time a client dropped that amount of money on her desk, she'd actually intended to kill her. 'Alias Investigations does primarily work on cases that other agencies would struggle with, am I right?'

The kid had done her homework which, somehow, made Jessica uneasy. Nobody ever did their homework for a cheating boyfriend. 'Yes, we do.' She answered. 'Uh, I'll need a name for the files.'

The girl was now pulling her own files out of her backpack - they was intermingled with school-books. 'It's Florence Romanova-Barnes. I can't stay very long - my mother has a tracker on me or I'd be looking into this myself.'

A….tracker? If she wasn't an oddball client before this, she was certainly one now. Jessica's curiosity may just get the better of her later, she'd have to look the girl up online - everyone had an online presence, especially teenage girls. Why would her mother need a tracker? 'Okay.' She wished she didn't have a hangover now, it was easier to think straight. 'What am I looking into, exactly?' She flipped open a file and read the contents of the first page. At the very top was a stamped symbol of a skull and tentacles; which was ominous to say the least.

'There are signals in New-York that I'm having trouble triangulating. They're not your normal kind of signals.' Florence warned and speared Jessica with a deep look to emphasise it before Jessica could even coherently say that New York was full of random things like that. 'They're around schools and parks - places children congregate.' Conspiracy theorist? She didn't seem the type to be caught up in the "UFOs built the Pyramids!" kind of conspiracies. Jessica glanced down at the charts and readings in her hand - clearly if she was a conspiracy theorist, then she had the decency to thoroughly research it first. She wouldn't have been able to find some of these - they looked like they were piggybacking on other signals. You'd have to be well versed in communications and technology - not her strong suit - to find some of these.

'You look like a smart kid, why don't you investigate them?' She questioned.

For the first time, Florence Romanova-Barnes looked...troubled. 'Nobody else will listen to me. My mom got so annoyed with how much time I was spending with these things that she burned them.' Jessica glanced down at the papers in her hand and then up at Florence who smiled slightly. 'Only a few copies of them.'

'Okay.' For the cash on the table she'd buy into whatever nutty conspiracy the girl had going on. It was her money after all. Wait - was it even her money? Jessica did not want a wrathful parent at her door demanding their life savings back.

'Don't worry, nobody's going to come looking for a refund.' Florence promised. 'That's from my... part-time job. I just want to know exactly where the signals are coming from. I can handle the rest.' She was packing her bag again but left the files on the desk.

Part-time? What - a paper route? The kid wasn't old enough to legally hold a job. The last sentence finally caught her hungover attention. Don't you mean the Government or the police?' Jessica demanded. 'They can handle the rest?' A little fourteen year old girl involved in some sort of conspiracy theory and then dying would do wonders for her reputation after all. It'd only go down.

Florence Romanova-Barnes looked - for a second - caught out but then smiled charmingly. 'Of course. I meant for the proper authorities to handle.' With that, she turned and said 'Thank you for taking on my case. I'll be in contact in a few weeks for the information.'

More shards of glass fell out of her door as the school-girl opened and then slammed it shut.

Jessica stared from the wad of cash to the files and back again before a groan made it's way up her throat and she grabbed the neck of the whiskey bottle. This was a weird way to start her Fridays.

* * *

A/N: so I've done Cage and Spiderman in Ultimate so I thought I'd play with Jones. Who would like to see Murdoch at some point?

Also this is just the _first_ part of Jones. Next comes the best bit - Soldier and Widow. _*madly cackles into the distance*_.


	28. Jones part 2

**Part 2**

Jessica Jones had a knack for finding more than what she was paid to find. Sure 90% of the work was just catching nasty cheats hooking up with their equally nasty side-chicks, but the rest of her work ended with her wading so far into wierd she couldn't touch the bottom with both feet.

Maybe that was why she drank. That and Kilgrave. Kilgrave had left his own set of scars.

The kid who had become her new client was definitely onto something, though. Florence Romanova-Barnes was a strange kid to start with, but looking over this data with an irish coffee - okay, more irish than coffee if she were honest with herself - this stuff was "wading into wierd" territory. How did she even find this sort of stuff? Was she actively _looking_ for it?

The signals were _scanning children_. Kids. Then sending the data somewhere underground. For what reason, Jessica couldn't tell, the information had been scrambled and encoded. It was only thanks to a conspiracy theory nut ex-client she'd been able to glean as much as she had. While she scanned the gibberish pages that had been spat out, Jessica had to wonder what Romanova-Barnes' interest in this was. The kid didn't strike Jessica as someone who normally asked for help. Come to that - she didn't look like the sort of kid to get involved in this kind of stuff. She looked like the kind of preppy little jerk that had bullied Jessica her whole childhood.

She hip-checked the door to her office - currently covered by a black bin bag and a piece of plywood and had staggered into the office to slap the papers down on the desk before she'd even noticed the figure leant on the windowsill.

For a second she was terrified it was Kilgrave.

He was bulky - too bulky to be Kilgrave, thank god - wearing a ratty hoodie and cap and eating an apple, seemingly ignorant to her presence. The only inkling she had that he'd seen her was the slight head tilt in her direction.

The door which was still thrown wide behind her, slammed shut. She turned sharply - despite the amount of irish in her coffee - and was confronted by a woman with the brightest shade of red hair Jessica had ever seen. The colour was too rich for Jessica to guess it had been dyed like that. It was either her natural hair or she was wearing a wig.

It was the same hair as her client. The Mysterious Ms Romanova-Barnes.

'Alias Investigations?'

Her bullshit meter was pinging. 'I'm not taking on any new clients.' She lied.

'It's about a client.' The man by the windowsill growled.

Jessica's hands bunched by themselves. They come into her home and do the good cop- bad cop routine on her?

'I'm not discussing clients.' She replied, hard.

'You want to discuss why our daughter's paying you?' The windowsill man asked, aloof.

Jessica swore inwardly. She knew ms "Part- time job" was trouble, but she'd still taken on the case because hey! The beer fund could always use some more cash. 'No refunds.' She replied.

'That's not what this is about.' The woman at the door drawled. 'You're going to stop looking into whatever it is that she's got you looking into.'

Oh. That was what this was. Well, Jessica was never one to take "friendly advice" before and she certainly wasn't about to start now.

The gorrilla by the window reached out to take the papers off her desk and she reacted. She'd worked hard for that gibberish and she definitely intended - if not to give it to the recipient - to keep hold of it. There was client confidentiality to consider.

What she wasn't expecting was to be clotheslined by what felt like a steel bar masquerading as the gorrilla's arm and slammed into the drywall of her home. She left an impressive hole as she crashed into her kitchen.

When she finally pulled herself up, out of the debris of her kitchen table, coffee mugs, and bits of thin plaster that used to be her wall, she launched into the office ; ready this time for a scrap, the redhead and her thug were gone. So were the papers.

Jessica stared at the mostly irish coffee soaking into the floorboards and murmured 'Sonova-'

* * *

The phonecall came as she was topping up her whiskey. 'Alias Investigations.' Jessica slurred.

'You had some unexpected visitors.' The caller stated.

Great. It was her client. The very oddball Ms Romanova-Barnes. She didn't sound surprised in the slightest. She must've known there was a chance of them meeting. 'You could have warned me.' Jessica replied and tossed back the whiskey.

It was pleasantly burning it's way down her throat when the client said 'I...don't know how they tracked me. I thought I'd jammed them.'

Jessica groaned into her whiskey glass. Honestly, when she heard that, she realised how young and completely naive her client was. 'Probably because not many people are looking into this scanning thing. Me asking questions and all, it was an easy figure.'

'Oh.' The girl replied. In the silence, she could hear the sounds of the badly maintained metro. 'I'm sorry for whatever they might've done.' She wasn't, Jessica realised. The tone was all wrong. This girl hadn't mastered the art of faking sincerity just yet.

'It wasn't that bad.' Jessica replied and turned to look at the hole in her wall where she could see her fridge. It did - at least - make getting beer from the kitchen a little easier.

'Do you have my files?'

Jessica opened up her desk drawer and found the folder marked F. R-B (Cur.). The file wasn't thick - and it had taken some persuasion for her Conspiracy Theorist _friend_ to re-print the results, including death threats. Both protection from and deliverance thereof - but she had the results. 'It's all in gibberish.' She frowned.

'It's encoded.' Her client replied in a tone that clearly said she was an idiot. 'I need you to post it.'

'You're not coming to collect?' Jessica frowned. 'After all I went through to get these?!'

'Do you want another visit from those two?' Florence replied.

No, she did not. She did not need more ventilation in her apartment - or irish coffee gone to waste. To be honest, she was more angry about the coffee. Another quick drawer search produced a slightly stained but still useable notepad and pen. 'Where am I posting them to?'

'St John Baptiste in Manhattan.'

'Seems a little public to be sending these ultra-important files.' Jessica noted as she scribbled down an address.

Florence Romanova-Barnes snorted on the other end of the line. 'The history teacher there seems to think I'm working on world war 2 code-breaking. I finished that days ago, this will not look out of place.'

Jessica raised an eyebrow. After being mugged for these files, she was kind of curious about what they were. 'What are you hoping to find with these files, exactly?'

The line was silent for some time. 'Have you ever heard of the organisation HYDRA?'

Jessica recognised an almost unwillingness to say the name. 'Vaguely.' She replied. 'Weren't they some super-secret society-'

'They were.' The girl replied. 'Lets just say they take an interest in ….special genetics.'

'Is that why they're scanning children?' Jessica asked.

'Mmm, no. They're scanning for something specific, I think, but they haven't narrowed it down any further than Manhattan so they're doing broad sweeps of everywhere that children congregate.'

'What are they looking for?' Jessica flipped through page upon page of letters, numbers, decimal points and complete garbage. Every page had that creepy tentacle skull on it.

'That is classified,' Florence Romanova-Barnes replied. 'Send the files immediately.'

Jessica's phone beeped and the call ended. She stared at her phone for some time before she looked down at the file. What the hell did she have here? What kind of fourteen year old uses the term "classified"?

Jessica Jones quickly did a search for HYDRA. The more she read, the more worried she became about what she'd just gotten involved in. World War 2 nazis, senators, moles, ghoulish experiments and a guy with a red skull. It was supposed to be dismantled - twice - but Florence Romanova-Barnes spoke as though they very much weren't.

She sat back and stared at the file as though it could explode at any given time. Slowly, she topped up her whiskey glass and found an envelope. She scribbled the address on the packaging hurriedly and stuffed the papers in as fast as she could.

The envelope sat on her desk like a bomb waiting to go off. Jessica cursed and hefted herself out of her desk chair.

That thing was not staying in her office.

She made a mental note to look up Florence Romanova Barnes at a later date. She had a feeling that sometime in the near future - she was going to see her face again.

* * *

A/N: Have part 2 of Jones! Poor Jessica. This is why she drinks. A lot. Hello readers, reviewers, WinterWidow fans et al!


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